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No. 283. 



aO OEITTS. 




AmtCIOTS Biniireta-<U«wlMMMih**MriMlfrMau|h*«kMUw*rMwtdMl*r, ^rtolMi. 



LOVELi. o i^lBRARY -CATALOGUE. 



1. H3rperioTi, by H. V 
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■ .' . Jj j 65. Siiaud - n 

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liid Mar- j Tf L 

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Parr.... 

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CS9. ....-., 

.'■Collins ^r ] 

Braddou...20 
^.^. 50 1 

- by Lucy 

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en.. 

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54. E 

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56. / 

A 
67. T 



61. Tcm Brown a getiooi i;.:ye 



a, byOuida, Partll. 



.15 




QECRET 

VJ OF 

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How to Beautify the Comvlexion. 



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A QUAINT LITERARY CREATION ! 



GRANDFATHER LICKSHIN& 

And Other Sketches, 



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Author of '' The New Shakespeare" and Other Travesties. 

A VOLUME OF GENUINE HUMOR ! 



1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt, 

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Also in Lovell's Library, 1 vol. 



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JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

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ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



OJV A LAZY IDLE BO V, 

I HAD occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little 
old town :f Con-e or Chur, in the Grisons, where lies buried 
that very uncient British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius,^ who 
founded the Church of St. Peter, on Cornhill. Few people note 
the church nowadays, and fewer ever heard of the saint. In 
the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears surrounded by other 
sainted persons of his family. With tight red breeches, a 
Roman habit, a curly brow^n beard, and a neat little gilt crown 
and sceptre, he stands, a very comely and cheerful image : and, 
from what I may call his peculiar position with regard to Corn- 
hill, I beheld this figure of St. Lucius with more interest than I 
should have bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, 
I dare say, his superiors. 

The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end of the 
world — of the world of to-day, the w^orld of rapid motion, and 
rushing railways, and the commerce and intercourse of men. 
From the northern gate, the iron road stretches away to Zurich, 
to Basle, to Paris, to home. From the old southern barriers, 
before which a little river rushes, and around v/hich stretch the 
crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears the 
slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine, through 
the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the 
Spliigen to the shores of Como. 

• Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, "from the table fast chained in St. Peter's 
Church, Cornhill ; " and says, *' he was after some chronicle buried at London, and afttr 

some chronicle buried at Glowcester " — but, oh! these incorrect chroniclers! when Albaa 
Butler, in the " Lives of the Saints," v. xii., and Murray's " Handbook," and the Sacri*- 
Uta lit Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb witli my own eyes I 



8 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty^ calm, and 
pastoral, than this remote little Chiir. What need have the 
inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer- 
houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them ? No 
enemies approach the great moulding gates : only at morn and 
even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens 
chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever- 
voluble stream that flovv^s under the old walls. The schoolboys, 
with book and satchel, in smart uniforms, march up to the 
g}^mnasium, and return thence at their stated time. There is 
one coffee-house in the town, and I see one old gentleman goes 
to it. There are shops with no customers seemingly, and the 
lazy tradesmen look cut of their little windows at the single 
stranger sauntering by. There is a stall with baskets of queer 
little black grapes and apples, and a pretty brisk trade with 
half-a-dozen urchins standing round. But, beyond this, there 
is scarce any talk or movement in cne street. There's nobody 
at the book-shop. '' If you will have the goodness to come 
again in an hour,'^ says the banker, with his mouthful of dinner 
at one o'clock, " you can have the money." There is nobody 
at the hotel, save the good landlady, the kind waiters, the brisk 
young cook who ministers to you. Nobody is in the Protestant 
church — (oh ! strange sight, the two confessions are here at 
jeace !) — nobody in the Catholic church : until the sacristan, 
from his snug abode in the cathedral close, espies the traveller 
eyeing the monsters and pillars before the old shark-toothed 
arch of his cathedral, and comes out (with a view to remunera- 
tion possibly) and opens the gate," and shows you the venerable 
church, and the queer old relics in the sacristy, and the ancient 
vestments (a black velvet cope, amongst *^other robes, as fresh 
as yesterday, and presented by that notorious '* pervert,^' 
Henry of Navarre and France), and the statue of St. Lucius who 
built St Peter's Church, on Cornhill. 

What a quiet, kind, quaint, pleasant, pretty old town ! Has 
it been asleep these hundreds and hundreds of years, and is 
the brisk young Prince of the Sidereal E^ealms in his screaming 
car drawn by his snorting steel elephant coming to waken it ? 
Time was w^hen there must have been life and bustle and com- 
merce here. Those vast, venerable walls were not made to 
keep out cows, but men-at-arms, led by fierce captains, who 
prowled about the gates, and robbed the traders as they passed 
in and out with their bales, their goods, their pack-horses, and 
their wains. Is the place so dead that even the clergy of the dif- 
ferent denominations can't quarrel ? Why, seven or eight, oi 



ex A LAZY IDLE BOY. fs 

a dozen, or fifteen hundred years ago (they haven't the register 
at St. Peter's up to that remote period. 1 dare say it was burnt 
in the fire of London) — a dozen hundred years ago, when there 
was some life in the town, St. Lucius was stoned here on ac- 
count of theological differences, after founding our church in 
Cornhill. 

There was a sweet pretty river walk we used to take in the 
evening and mark the mountains round glooming with a deeper 
purple ; the shades creeping up the golden v^alls ; the river 
brawling, the cattle calling, the maids and chatterboxes round 
the fountains babbling and bawling ; and several times in the 
course of our sober walks we overtook a lazy slouching boy, or 
hobbledehoy, with a rusty coat, and trousers not too long," and 
big feet trailing lazily one after the other, and large lazy hands 
dawdling from out the tight sleeves, c^nd in the lazy hands, a 
little book, which my lad held up to his face, and which I dare 
say so charmed and ravished him, that he was blind to the 
beautiful sights around him ; unmindful, I would venture to lay 
any vv'ager, of the lessons he had to learn for to-morrow; for- 
getful of mother waiting supper, and father preparing a scold- 
ing ; absorbed utterly and entirely in his book. 

What was it that so fascinated the young student, as he 
stood by the river shore ? Not the Pons Asinorum. What 
book so delighted him, and blinded him to all the rest of the 
world, so that he did not care to see the apple-woman with her 
fruit, or (more tempting still to sons of Eve) the pretty girls 
with their apple cheeks, who laughed and prattled round the 
fountain ! \\'hat was the book ? Do you suppose it was Livy, 
or the Greek grammar ? Xo ; it was a Novel that you were 
reading, you lazy, not very clean, good-for-nothing, "^ sensible 
boy ! It vv-as D'Artagnan locking up General Monk in a box, 
or almost suc$;eeding in keeping Charles J;he First's head on. 
It was the prisoner of the Chateau d'lf cutting himself out of 
the sack fifty feet under water (I mention the novels I like best 
myself — novels without love or talking, or any of that sort of 
nonsense, but containing plenty of fighting, escaping, robbery, 
and rescuing) — cutting himself out of the sack, and swimming 
to the island of Monte Cristo. O Dumas ! O thou brave, 
kind, gallant old Alexandre ! I hereby offer thee homage, and 
give thee thanks for many pleasant hours. I have read thee 
(being sick in bedj for thirteen hours of a happy dav, and had 
the ladies of the house fighting for the volumes. Be assured 
that lazy boy was reading Dumas for I will go so far as to let 
the reader here pronounce the eulogium, or insert the name of 



lo ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

his favorite author) ; and as for the anger, or it may be, the 
reverberations of his schoohiiaster, or the remonstrances of his 
father, or the tender pleadings of his mother that he should 
not let the supper grow cold — I don't believe the scapegrace 
cared one hg. No ! Figs are sweet, but fictions are sweeter. 

Have you ever seen a score of white-bearded, white-robed 
warriors, or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa 
or Beyrout, and listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels 
out of " Antar'' or the "" Arabian Nights? " I was once pres- 
ent when a young gentleman at table put a tart away from him, 
and said to his neighbor, the Younger Son (with rather a fatu- 
ous air), '*! never eat sweets." 
• " Not eat sweets ! and do you know why ? " says T. 

"Because I am past that kind of thing," says the young 
gentleman. ^ 

" Because you are a glutton and a sot ! " cries the Elder 
(and Juvenis winces a liitle). " All people who have natural, 
healthy appetites, love sweets ; all children, all women, all East- 
ern people, whose tastes are not corrupted by gluttony and 
strong drink." And a plateful of raspberries and cream disap- 
peared before the philosopher. 

You take the allegory ? Novels are sweets. All people with 
healthy literary appetites love them — almost all women ; — a 
vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Whv, one of the 
most learned physicians in England said to me only yesterday, 
*' I have just read So-ajid-So for the second time" (^naming one 
of Jones's exquisite fictions). Judges, bishops, chancellors, 
mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers ; as well as young 
boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers. Who has 
not read about Eldon, and how he cried over novels ever}- night 
when he was not at wdiist ? 

As for that lazy naughty boy at Chur, I doubt whether he 
will like novels when he is thirty years of age. . He is taking 
too great a glut of them now. He is eating jelly until he will 
be sick. He will know most plots by the time he is twenty, so 
that he will never be surprised v/hen the Stranger turns out to 
be the rightful earl, — when the old waterman, throwing off his 
beggarly gabardine, shov\'s his stars and the collars of his vari- 
ous orders, and clasping Antonia to his bosom, proves himself 
to be the prince, her long-lost father. He will recognize the 
novelist's same characters, though they appear in red-heeled 
pumps and ailes-de-pigeon^ or the garb of the nineteenth centur}'. 
He will get weary of sweets, as boys of private schools grow (or 
us«d to grow, for I have done growing some littU time myself. 



ON A LAZY IDLE BOY, H 

and the practice may have ended too; — as private schoolboys 
used to grow tired of the pudding before their mutton at dinner. 

And pray what is the moral of this apologue ? The moral I 
take to be this : the appetite for novels extending to the end of 
the world ; far away in the frozen deep, the sailors reading them 
to one another during the endless night ; — far away under the 
Syrian stars, the solemn sheikhs and elders hearkening to the 
poet as he recites his tales ; far away in the Indian camps, where 

the soldiers listen to 's tales, or 's, after the hot day's 

march ; far away in little Chur yonder, where the lazy boy pores 
over the fond volume, and drinks it in with all his eyes ; — the 
demand being what v/e know it is, the merchant must supply it, 
as he will supply saddles and pale ale for Bombay or Calcutta. 

But as surely as the cadet drinks too much pale ale, it will 
disagree with him ; and so surely, dear youth, will too much 
novels cloy on thee. I wonder, do novel-writers themselves 
read many novels ? If you go into Gunter's, you don't see those 
charming young ladies (to whom I present my most respectful 
compliments) eating tarts and ices, but at the proper even-tide 
they have good plain wholesome tea and bread-and-butter. Can 
anybody tell me does the author of the "* Tale of Two Cities " 
read novels ? does the author of the "' Tower of London " de- 
vour romances ? does the dashing " Harry Lorrequer " delight 
in " Plain or Ringlets " or " Sponge's Sporting Tour V Does 
the veteran, from whose flowing pen we had the books which 
delighted our young days, " Darnley," and *' Richelieu," and 
" Delorme," * relish the works of Alexander the Great, and thrill 
over the *' Three Musqueteers t " Does the accomplished author 
of the ^' Caxtons " read the other tales in Blackwood 1 (For 
example, that ghost-story printed last August, and which for my 
part, though I read it in the public reading-room at the '' Pa- 
vilion Hotel " at Folkestone, I protest frightened me so that I 
scarce dared look over my shoulder.) Does '' Uncle Tom " ad- 
mire " Adam Bede ; '' and does the author of the '* Vicar of 
Wrexhill " laugh over the ** Warden " and the " The Three 
Clerks ? " Dear youth of ingenuous countenance and ingenu- 
ous pudor 1 I make no doubt that the eminent parties above 
named all partake of novels in moderation — eat jellies — but 
mainly nourish themselves upon wholesome roast and boiled. 

Here, dear youth aforesaid ! our Cornhill Magazine owners 
strive to provide thee with facts as well as fiction ; and though 

♦ By the w'ay, what a strange fate i? that which befeil the veteran novelist! He was 
appointed her majesty's Consul-General in Venice, the only city in Europe where th^ 
famous " Two Cavaliers " cannot by any possibility be seen riding together. 



12 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

it does not become them to brag of their Ordinary, at least they 
invite thee to a table* where thou shalt sit in good company. 
That story of the *^ Fox *' '^ was written by one of the gallant 
seamen who sought for poor Franklin under the awful Arctic 
Night : that account of China t is told by the man of all the em- 
pire most likely to know of what he speaks : those pages regard- 
ing Volunteers % come from an honored hand that has borne the 
sword in a hundred famous fields, and pointed the British guns 
in the greatest siege in the world. 

Shall we point out others ? We are fellow-travellers, and 
shall make acquaintance as the voyage proceeds. In the At- 
lantic steamers, on the first day out (and on high and holy days 
subsequently), the jellies set down on table are richly orna- 
mented ; medioque in fo?ite leporiun rise the American and British 
flags nobly emblazoned in tin. As the passengers remark this 
pleasing phenomenon, the Captain no doubt improves the 
occasion by expressing a hope, to his right and left, that the flag 
of Mr. Bull and his younger Brother may always float side by 
side in friendly emulation. Novels having been previously com- 
pared to jellies — here are two (one perhaps not entirely sac- 
charine, and flavored with an amari aliquid very distasteful to 
some palates) — two novels § under two flags, the one that an- 
cient ensign which has hung before the well-known booth of 
*' Vanity Fair;'' the other that fresh and handsome standard 
which has lately been hoisted on ^' Barchester Towers." Pray, 
sir, or madam, to which dish will you be helped t 

So have I seen my friends Captain Lang and Captain Com- 
stock press their guests to partake of the fare on that memor- 
able '* First day out," when there is no man, I think, who sits 
down but asks a blessing on his voyage, and the good ship dips 
over the bar, and bounds away into the blue water. 



ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK. 

Montaigne and " Howel's Letters " are my bedside books. 
If T wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me 
to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't 

* ''The Search for Sir John Franklin. (From the Private Journal of an Officer of the 
* Fox.') " 

t " The Chinese and the Outer Barbarians." By Sir John Bowring. 

X " Our Volunteers." By Sir John Burgoyne. 

I *' Lovel the Widower " and '' Framley Parsonage." 



ibN TWO CHILDREN TN BLACK. Xj 

weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and 
over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half re- 
member them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse 
stories. I don't heed them. It was the custom of their time, 
as it is of Highlanders and Hottentots, to dispense with a part 
of dress which we all wear in cities. But people can't afford 
to be shocked either at Cape Town or at Inverness every time 
they meet an individual who wears his national airy raiment. I 
never knew the " Arabian Nights " was an improper book until 
I happened once to read it in a *^ family edition." Well, qtci 
s* excuse. ^ ^ ^ Who, pray, has accused me as yet? Here am I 
smothering dear good old Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she 
has opened her mouth. I love, I say, and scarce ever tire of 
hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old friends, the 
Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King 
Charles's Council. Their egotism in nowise disgusts me. I 
hope I shall always like to hear men, in -reason, talk about 
themselves. What subject does a man know better? If I 
stamp on a friend's corn, his outcry is genuine — he confounds 
my clumsiness in the accents of truth. He is speaking about 
himself, and expressing his motion of grief or pain in a manner 
perfectly authentic and veracious. I have a story of my own, 
of a wrong done to me by somebody, as far back as the year 1838 : 
whenever I think of it, and have had a couple glasses of wine, 
I cajinot help telling it. The toe is stamped upon : the pain is 
just as keen as ever : I cry out, and perhaps utter imprecatory 
language. I told the story only last Wednesday at dinner : — 

" Mr. Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, " how comes 
it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, 
or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point) — 
how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons v/hom 
you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, 
poke, toss up in the air, kick, and trample on ? " 

I couldn't help myself. 1 knew^ I ought not to do it. I told 
her the whole story, between the entrees and the roast. The 
wound began to bleed again. The horrid pang was there, as 
keen and as fresh as ever. If I live half as long as Tithonus,^ 
that crack across my heart can never be cured. There are 
wrongs and griefs that can\t be mended. It is all very well of 
you, my dear Mrs. G., to say that this spirit is unchristian, and 
that we ou2:ht to forgive and foroet. and so forth. How^ can I 
forget at will ? How forgive ? I can forgive the occasional 

* '"TithoriUS." by Tennyson, had appeared in the prece(i:ng (the 2dj number of thf 
Cornhill Magazine'. 



r^ kOUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

waiter who broke my beautiful old decanter at that verj^ dinner'. 
I am not going to do him any injury. But all the powers on 
earth can't make that claret-jug whole. 

So, you see, I told the lady the inevitable stor}^ I was 
<^^Qtistical. I was selfish, no doubt ; but I was natural, and 
vas telling the truth. You say you are angry with a man for 
alking about him.self. It is because you yourself are selfish, 
/hat that other person's Self does not interest you. Be in- 
terested by other people and with their affairs. Let them prattle 
and talk to you, as I do my dear old egotists just mentioned. 
vVhen you have had enough of them, and sudden hazes come 
ner your eyes, lay down the volume ; pop out the caadle, and 
lornicz bieti. I should like to write a nightcap book — a book 
that you can muse over, that you can smile over, that you can 
yawn over — a book of which you can say, '* ^^'ell, this man is 
so and so and so and so ; but he has a friendly heart (although 
some wiseacres have painted him as black as Bogey), and you 
may trust what he says." I should like to touch you sometimes 
vvith a reminiscence that shall waken your sympathy, and make 
you say, lo anche have so thought, felt, smiled, suffered. Now^, 
liow is this to be done except by egotism ? Linea recta brevis- 
sima. That right /line ''I" is the very shortest, simplest, 
straightforwardest means of communication between us, and 
stands for what it is worth and no more. Sometimes authors 
.^ay, " The present writer has often remarked ; " or, " The un- 
dersigned has observed:'" or *' I\Ir. Roundabout presents, his 
compliments to the gentle reader, and begs to state," Sec. : but 
" I " is better and straighter than all these grimaces of modesty : 
and although these are Roundabout Papers, and may wander 
who knows whither, I shall ask leave to maintain the upright 
nnd simple perpendicular. When this bundle of egotisms is 
bound up together, as they may be one day, if no accident pre- 
^ ents this tongue from wagging, or this ink from running, they 
will bore you very likely ; so it would to read through " Howel's 
Letters" from beginning to end, or to eat up the whole of a 
I'am : but a slice on occasion may have a relish : a dip into the 
^ olume at random and so on for a page or two : and now and 
then a smile ; and presently a gape ; and the book drops out 
of your hand ; and so, bon soir, and pleasant dreams to you. 
I have frequently seen men at clubs asleep over their humble 
>ervant^s works, and am always pleased. Even at a lecture I 
don't mind, if they, don't snore. Only the other day ;\hen 
my friend A. said '^ You've left of! that Roundabout busi- 
ness, I tee j very glad you have," I joined in the general roat 



OjV riVO CHILD REiX IN BLACK. 



IS 



of laughter at the table. I don't care a fig wheAer Archilochus 
likes the papers or no. You don't like partridge, Archilochus, 
or porridge, or what not ? Try some other dish. I am not going 
to force mine down your throat7or quarrel with you if you re- 
fuse it. Once in America a clever and candid woman said to 
me, at the close of a- dinner, during which I had been sitting 
beside her, '^ Mr. Roundabout, I was told I should not like 
you ; and I don't." " Well, ma'am," says I, in a tone of the 
most unfeigned simplicity, " I don't care." And we became 
good friends immediately, and esteemed each other ever after. 

So, my dear Archilochus, if you come upon this paper, and 
say, "' Fudge ! " and pass on to another, I for one shall not be 
in the least mortified. If you sav, **What does he mean bv 
calling this paper On Two Children in Blacky when there's noth- 
ing about people in black at all, unless the ladies he met (and 
evidently bored) at dinner, were black women } What is all 
this egotistical pother } A plague on his Ts ! " My dear fellow, 
if you read " ^lontaigne's Essays," you must own that he might 
call almost anyone by the name of any other, and that an essay 
on the Moon or an essay on Green Cheese would be as appro- 
priate a title as one of his on Coaches, on the Art of Discours- 
ing, or Experience, or what you will. Besides, if I have a 
subject (and.I'have) I claim to approach it in a roundabout 
manner. 

You remember Balzac's tale of the Feau de Chagrin^ and 
how ever}^ time the possessor used it for the accomplishment of 
some wish the fairy Peau shrank a little and the owner's life 
correspondingly shortened ? I have such a desire to be well 
with my public that I am actually giving up my favorite story. 
I am killing my goose, I knov/ I am. I can't tell my story of 
the children in black after this ; after printing it, and sending 
it through the country. When they are gone to the printer's 
these Tittle things become public property. I take their hands. 
I bless them. I say, "Good-by, my little dears." I am quite 
sorry to part with them : but the fact is, I have told all my 
friends about them already, and don't dare to take them about 
with me any more. 

No\v every word is true of this little anecdote, and I sub- 
mit that there lies in it a most curious and exciting little mys- 
tery. I am like a man who gives you the last bottle of his '25 
claret. It is the pride of his cellar ; he knows it, and he has 
a right to praise it. He takes up the bottle, fashioned so 
sknderly — takes it up tenderly, cants it with care, places it be- 
fore his friends, declares how good it is, with honest pride, and 



l6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

wishes he had a hundred dozen bottles more of the same wine 
in his cellar. Si quid novisti. &c., I shall be very glad to hear 
from you. I protest and vow I am giving you the best I have. 

Well, who those little boys in black were, I shall never 
probably know to my dying day. They v/ere very pretty little 
men, with pale faces, and large, melancholy eyes ; and they had 
beautiful little hands, and little boots, and the finest little shirts, 
and black paletots lined with the richest silk ; and they had 
picture-books in several languages, English, and French, and 
German, I remember. Two more aristocratic-looking little men 
I never set eyes on. They were travelling with a very handsome, 
pale lady in mourning, and a maid-servant dressed in black, too \ 
and on the lady's face there was the deepest grief. The little 
boys clambered and played about the carriage, and she sat 
watching. It was a railway-carriage from Frankfort to Hei- 
delberg. 

I saw at once that she was the mother of those children, and 
going to part from them. Perhaps I have tried parting with my 
own, and not found the business very pleasant. Perhaps I 
recollect driving down (with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on 
the box) with my own mother to the end of the avenue, where 
we waited — only a few minutes — until the whirring wheels of 
that ^" Defiance '' coach were heard rolling towards us as certain 
as death. Twang goes the horn ; up goes the trunk ; down 
come the steps. Bah ! I see the autumn evening : I hear 
the wheels now : I smart the cruel smart again : and, boy or 
man, have never been able to bear the sight of people parting 
from their children. 

I thought these little men might be going to school for the 
first time in their lives ; and mamma might be taking them to the 
doctor, and would leave them with many fond charges, and little 
wistful secrets of love, bidding the elder to protect his^ounger 
brother, and the younger to be gentle, and to remember to pray 
to God always for his mother, who would pray for her boy 
too. Our party made friends with these young ones during 
the litde journey ; but the poor lady was too sad to talk except 
to the boys now and again, and sat in her corner, pale, and 
silently looking at them. 

The next day^ v/e saw the lady and her maid driving in the 
direction of the railway-station, without the boys. The parting 
had taken place, then. That night they would sleep among 
strangers. The little beds at home were vacant, and poor 
mother might go and look at them. Well, tears flow, and 
friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the world. 



ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK, 17 

I Qttre say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the 
vast shattered walls, and quaint gables ; and the Neckar running 
its bright course through that charming scene of peace and 
beauty ; and ate our dinner, and drank our wine with relish. 
The poor mother would eat but little Abendessen that night ; 
and, as for the children — that first night at school — hard bed, 
hard words, strange boys bullying, and laughing, and jarring 
you with their hateful merriment — as for the first night at a 
strange school, we most of us remember what that is. And 
the first is not the worsts my boys, there's the rub. But 
each man has his share of troubles, and, I suppose, you must 
have yours. 

From Heidelberg we went to Baden-Baden : and, I dare 
say, saw Madame de Schlangenbad and Madame de la Cruche- 
cassee, and Count Punter, and honest Captain Blackball. And 
whom should we see in the evening, but our two little boys, 
walking on each side of a fierce, yellow-faced, bearded man ! 
We w^anted to renew our acquaintance with them, and they 
were coming forward quile pleased to greet us. But the father 
pulled back one of the little men by his paletot, gave a grim 
scowl, and walked away. I can see the children now looking 
rather frightened away from us and up into the father's face, or 
the cruel uncle's — which was he ? I think he was the father. 
So this was the end of them. Not school, as I at first had 
imagined. The mother w^as gone, who had given them the 
heaps of pretty books, and the pretty studs in the shirts, and 
the pretty silken clothes, and the tender — tender cares ; and 
they were handed to this scowling practitioner of Trente et 
Quarante. Ah 1 this is worse than school. Poor little men ! 
poor mother sitting by the vacant little beds ! We saw the 
children once or twice after, always in Scowler's company ; but 
we did not dare to give each other any marks of recognition. 

From Baden we went to Basle, and thence to Lucerne, and 
so over the St. Gothard into Italy. From Milan we w^ent to 
Venice ; and now comes the singular part of my story. In 
Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name ; but 
in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I w^ent to buy some 
remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. 
Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying 
animals ; all three will have at you at once ; and one night 
nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming 
out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in 
my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom 
should I light upon but one of my little Heidelberg-Baden boys ! 



l8 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

I have said how handsomely they were dressed as long as 
they were with their mother. When I saw the boy at Venice, 
who perfectly recognized me, his only garb was a wretched 
yellow cotton gown. His little feet, on which I had admired 
the little shiny boots, were without shoe or stockmg. He looked 
at me, ran to an old hag of a w^oman, who seized his hand ; and 
with her he disappeared down one of the thronged lanes of the 
city. 

From Venice w^e went to Trieste (the Vienna railway at that 
time was only opened as far as Laybach, and the magnificent 
Semmering Pass was not quite completed). At a station be- 
tween Laybach and Graetz, one of my companions alighted for 
refreshment, and came back to the carriage saying : — 

" There's that horrible man from Baden, with the tw^o little 
boys." 

Of course, we had talked about the appearance of the little 
boy at Venice, and his strange altered garb. My companion 
said they were pale, wTCtched-looking, and dressed quite shabbily. 

I got out at several stations, and looked at all the carriages. 
I could not see my little men. From that day to this I have 
never set eyes on them. That is all my story. Who were they ? 
What could they be ? How can you explain that mystery of the 
mother giving them up ; of the remarkable splendor and ele- 
gance of their appearance while under her care ; of their bare- 
footed squalor in Venice, a month afterwards ; of their shabby 
habiliments at Laybach ? Had the- father gambled away his 
money, and sold their clothes ? How^ came they to have passed 
out of the hands of a refined lady (as she evidently was, with 
whom I first saw them) into the charge of quite a common 
woman like her with whom I saw one of the boys at Venice t 
Here is but one chapter of the story. Can any man write the 
next, or that preceding the strange one on which I happened 
to light ? Who knows ? the mystery may have some quite 
simple solution. I saw two children, attired like little princes, 
taken from their mother and consigned to other care ; and a fort- . 
night afterwards, one of them barefooted and like a beggar. 
Who will read this riddle of The Two Children in Black ? 



ON NIBMQNU. If 



ON RIBBONS, 

Thb uncle of the present Sir Louis N. Bonaparte, K.G., 
Sec, inaugurated his reign as Emperor over the neighboring 
nation by establishing an Order, to which all citizens of his 
country, military, naval, and civil — all men most distinguished 
in science, letters, arts, and commerce — were admitted. The 
emblem of the Order was but a piece of ribbon, more or less 
long or broad, with a toy at the end of it. The Bourbons had 
toys and ribbons of theii»own, blue, black, and all-colored ; and 
on their return to dominion such good old Tories would nat- 
urally have preferred to restore their good old Orders of Saint 
Louis, Saint Esprit, and Saint Michel ; but France had taken 
the ribbon of the Legion of Honor so to her heart that no 
Bourbon sovereign dared to pluck it thence. 

In England, until very late days, we have been accustomed 
rather to pooh-pooh national Orders, to vote ribbons and crosses, 
tinsel gewgaws, foolish foreign ornaments, and so forth. It is 
known how the Great Duke (the breast of whose own coat was 
plastered with some half-hundred decorations) was averse to the 
wearing of ribbons, medals, clasps, and the like, by his army. 
We have all of us read how uncommonly distinguished Lord 
Castlereagh looked at Vienna, where he was the only gentleman 
present without any decoration whatever. And the Great Duke's 
theory was, that clasps and ribbons, stars and garters, w^ere 
good and proper ornaments for himself, for the chief officers of 
his distinguished army, and for gentlemen of high birth, who 
might naturally claim to wear a band of garter blue across their 
waistcoats ; but that for common people your plain coat, with- 
out stars and ribbons, was the most sensible wear. 

And no doubt you and I are as happy, as free, as comfort- 
able ; we can walk and dine as well ; we can keep the winter's 
cold out as well, without a star on our coats, as without a 
feather in our hats. How often we have laughed at the absurd 
mania of the Americans for dubbing their senators, members of 
Congress, and States' representatives, Honorable ! We have a 
right to call our Privy Councillors Right Honorable, our Lords' 
sons Honorable, and so forth : but for a nation as numerous, 
well educated", strong, rich, civilized, free as bur own, to dare 
to give its distinguished citizens titles of honor — monstrous 



20 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



assumption of low-bred arrogance and parvenu vanity ! Oul 
titles are respectable, but theirs absurd. Mr. Jones, of London, 
a Chancellor's son, and a tailor's grandson, is justly Honorable, 
and entitled to be Lord Jones at his noble father's decease : but 
Mr. Brown, the senator from New York, is a silly upstart for 
tacking Honorable to his name, and our sturdy British good 
sense laughs at him. Who has not laughed (I have myself) at 
Honorable Nahum Dodge, Honorable Zeno Scudder, Honora- 
ble Hiram Boake, and the rest ? A score of such queer names 
and titles I have smiled at in America. And, mutato no7ni?ie ? 
I meet a born idiot, w4io is a peer and born legislator. This 
drivelling noodle and his descendants through life are your 
natural superiors and mine — your and my children's superiors. 
I read of an alderman kneeling and knighted at court : I see a 
gold-stick waddling backwards before Majesty in a procession, 
and if we laugh, don't you suppose the Americans laugh too t 

Yes, stars, garters, orders, knighthoods, and the like, are 
folly. Yes, Bobus, citizen and soap-boiler, is a good man, and 
no one laughs at him or good Mrs. Bobus, as they have their 
dinner at one o'clock. But who will not jeer at Sir Thomas 
on a melting day and Lady Fobus, at Margate, eating shrimps 
in a donkey-chaise ? Yes, knighthood is absurd : and chivalry 
an idiotic superstition : and Sir Walter Manny was a zany : 
and Nelson, with his flaming stars and cordons, splendent upon 
a day of battle, w^as a madman : and Murat, with his crosses 
and orders, at the head of his squadrons charging victorious, 
was only a crazy mountebank, who had been a tavern-w^aiter, 
and was puffed up with absurd vanity about his dress and legs. 
And the men of the French line at Fontenoy, who told Messieurs 
de la Garde to fire first, were smirking French dancing-masters ; 
and the Black Prince, waiting upon his royal prisoner, was act- 
ing an inane masquerade : and chivalry is naught ; and Honor 
is humbug ; and Gentlemanhood is an extinct folly ; and Ambi- 
tion is madness ; and desire of distinction is criminal vanity ; 
and glory is bosh ; and fair fame is idleness ; and nothing is 
true but two and two ; and the colour of all the world is drab |» 
and all men are equal ; and one man is as tall as another ; and 
one man is as good as another — and a great dale betther, as 
the Irish philosopher said. 

Is this so ? Titles and badges of honor are vanity ; and in 
the American Revolution you have his Excellency General 
Washington sending back, and with proper spirit sending back, 
a letter in which he is not addressed as Excellency and General. 
Titles are abolished ; and the American Republic swarms with 



men claiming and bearing them. You have the French soldier 
cheered and happy in his dying agony, and kissing with frantic 
joy the chief's hand who lays the little cross on the bleeding 
bosom. At home you have the Dukes and Earls jobbing and 
intriguing for the Garter; the iNIilitary Knights grumbling at 
the Civil Knights of the Bath : the little ribbon eager for the 
collar ; the soldiers and seamen from India and the Crimea 
marching in procession before -the Queen, and receiving from 
her hands the cross bearing her royal name. And, remember, 
there are not only the cross wearers, but all the fathers and 
friends ; all the women who have pra3'ed for their absent heroes ; 
Hariy's wife, and Tom's mother, and Jack's daughter, and 
Frank's sv/eetheart, each of whom w^ars in her heart of hearts 
afterwards the badge which son, father, lover, has won by his 
merit ; each of whom is made happy and proud, and is bound 
to the country by that little bit of ribbon. 

I have heard, in a lecture about George the Third, that, at 
his accession, the King had a" mind to establish an order for 
literar}- men. It was to have been called the Order of Minerva 
— I suppose with an Owl for a badge. The knights were to 
have worn a star of sixteen points, and a 3'ellow ribbon ; and 
good old Samuel Johnson was talked of as President, or Grand 
Cross, or Grand^ Owl, of the society. Now about such an order 
as this there certainly may be doubts. Consider the claimants, 
the difficulty of settling their claims, the rows and squabbles 
amongst the candidates, and the subsequent decision of pos- 
terity ! Dr. Beattie would have ranked as first poet, and twenty 
years after the sublime Mr. Hayley would, no doubt, have 
claimed the Grand Cross. Mr. Gibbon would not have been 
eligible, on account of his dangerous freethinking opinions ; 
and her sex, as well as her republican sentiments, might have 
interfered with the knighthood of the immortal Mrs. Catharine 
Macaulay. How Goldsmith would have paraded the ribbon at 
!Mad^e Cornelys's, or the Academy dinner ! How Peter 
Pindar would have railed at it ! Fifty years later, the noble 
Scott would have worn the Grand Cross and deserved it; but 
Gifford would have had it ; and Byron, and Shelly, and Hazlitt, 
and Hunt would have been without it ; and had Keats been 
proposed as officer, how the Toiy prints would have yelled with 
rage and scorn ! Had the star of Minerva lasted to our present 
time — but I pause, not because the idea is dazzling, but too 
awful. Fancy the claimants, and the row about their preced- 
ence ! Which philosopher shall have the grand cordon ? — which 
the collar ? — which the little scrap no bigger than a butter-cup ? 



J 2 ROU.^DABOVT PAPERS. 

Of the historians — A, say — and C, anAF, and G, and S, andT, 
— which shall be Companion and which Grand Owl ? Of the 
poets, w^ho wears, or claims, the largest and brightest star? Of 
the novelists, there is A, and B and C D ; and E (star of first 
magnitude, newly discovered), and F (a magazine of wit), and 
fair G, and H, and I, and brave old J, and charming K, and L, 
andM, and N, andO (fairtwinklers), and I anx puzzled between 
three P's — Peacock, Miss Pardoe, and Paul Pry — and Queechy, 
and R, and S, and T, fnere et'fils^ and very likely U, O gentle 
reader, for who has not written his novel now-a-days ? — who has 
not a claim to the star and straw-colored ribbon ? — and who 
shall have the biggest and largest ? Fancy the struggle 1 
Fancy the squabble ! Fancy the distribution of prizes ! 

Who shall decide on them ? Shall it be the sovereign ? 
shall it be the Minister for the time being? and has Lord 
Palmerston made a deep study of novels ? In this matter the 
late Ministry,^ to be sure, was better qualified ; but even then, 
grumblers who had not got their canary cordons, would have 
hinted at professional jealousies entering the Cabinet ; and, 
the ribbons being awarded, Ja^k would have scowled at his be- 
cause Dick had a broader one ; Ned been indignant because 
Bob's was as large : Tom would have thrust his into the drawer, 
and scorned to wear it at all. No no : the so-called literary 
world was well rid of Minerva and her yellow ribbon. The 
great poets would have been indifferent, the httle poets jealous, 
the funny men furious, the philosophers satirical, the historians 
supercilious, and, finally, the jobs vrithout end. Say, ingenuity 
and cleverness are to be rewarded by State tokens and prizes — 
and take for granted the Order of Minerva is established — who 
shall have it ? A great philosopher ? no doubt we cordially 
salute him G.C.M. A great historian ? G.C.M. of course. A 
great engineer? G.C.M. A great poet? received with acclam- 
ation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M. If a 
great painter, why not a great novelist ? Well, pass, great nov- 
elist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial a story-tejiing or 
music-composing artist, why not a singing artist ? Why not a 
basso-profondo ? Why not a primo tenore ? x\nd if a singer, 
why should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage 
with his cordon, and cut capers to the music of a row of decor- 
ated fiddlers ? A chemist puts in his claim for having invented 
a new color \ an apothecary for a new pill ; the cook for a new 
sauce J the tailor for a new cut of trousers. We have brought 

* That of Lord Dwby, in 1859, which included Mr. Disraeli and Sir Edward Bulwel 
Lytton. 



ON RIBBONS, «3 

4ic star of Minerva down from the breast to the pantaloons. 
Stars and garters ! can we go any farther ; or shall we give the 
shoemaker the yellow ribbon of the order for his shoetie ? 

When I began this present Roundabout excursion, I think 
I had not quite made up my mind whether we would have an 
Order of all the Talents or not : perhaps I rather had a hanker- 
ing for a rich ribbon and gorgeous star, in which my family 
might like to see me at parties in my best waistcoat. But then 
the door opens, and there come in, and by the same right too, 
Sir Alexis Soyer ! Sir Alessandro Ta'mburini ! Sir Agostino 
Velluti ! Sir Antonio Paganini (violinist) ! Sir Sandy McGuf- 
fog (piper to the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh) ! Sir 
Alcide Flicflac (premier danseur of H.M. Theatre) ! Sir Harley 
Quin and Sir Joseph Grimaldi (from Covent Garden) ! They 
have all the yellow ribbon. They are all honorable, and clever, 
and distinguished artists. Let us elbow through the rooms, 
make a bow to the lady of the house, give a nod to Sir George 
Thrum, who is leading the orchestra, and go and get some 
champagne and seltzer-w^ater from Sir Richard Gunter, who is 
presiding at the buffet. A national decoration might be well 
and good : a token awarded by the country to all its bene-nicren- 
tibus : but most gentlemen with Minerva stars would, I think, 
be inclined to wear very wide breast-collars to their coats. 
Suppose yourself, brother penman, decorated with this ribbop, 
and looking in the glass, would you not laugh ? Would not 
wife and daughters laugh at that canar}'-colored emblem ? 

But suppose a man, old or young, of figure ever so stout, 
thin, stumpy, homely, indulging in looking-glass reflections with 
that hideous ribbon and cross called V. C. on his coat, would 
he not be proud ? and his family, would not they be prouder ? 
For your nobleman there is the famous old blue garter and star, 
and welcome. If I were a marquis — if I had thirty — forty 
thousand a year (settle the sum. my dear Alnaschar, according 
to your liking), I should consider myself entitled to my seat in 
Parliament and to my garter, l^he garter belongs to the Orna- 
mental Classes. Have you seen the new magnificent Pavo 
Spicifer at the Zoological Gardens, and do you grudge him his 
jew^elled coronet and the azure splendor of his waistcoat ? I 
like my Lord Mayor to have a gilt coach ; my magnificent mon- 
arch to be surrounded by magnificent nobles : I huzzay respect- 
fully when they pass in procession. It is good for Mr. Briefless 
(50, Pump Court, fourth floor) that there should be a Lord 
Chancellor, with a gold robe and fifteen thousand a year. It is 
good for a poor curate that there should be splendid bishops at 



H 



!^0tJA^l)ABOUT PAPERS 



FuUiam and Lambeth : their lordships were poor curates once, 
and have won, so to speak, their ribbon. Is a man who puts 
into a lotterv" to be sulky because he does not win the 
twenty thousand pounds prize ? Am I to fall into a rage, and 
bully my family when I come home, after going to see Chats^ 
worth or Windsor, because we have only two little drawing- 
rooms? Welcome to your garter, my lord, and shame upon 
him qui 7/ial y pense I 

So I arrive in my rpundabout way near the point towards 
which I have been trotting ever since we set out. 

In a voyage to America, some nine years since, on the 

seventh or eighth day out from Liverpool, Captain L came 

at eight bells as usual, talked a little to the persons right and 
left of him, and helped the soup with his accustomed politeness. 
Then he went on deck, and was back in a minute, and operated 
on the fish, looking rather grave the while. 

Then he vvcnt on deck again ; and this time was absent, it 
may be, three or five minutes, during which the fish disappeared, 
and the entrees arrived, and the roast beef. Say ten minutes 
passed — I can't tell after nine years. 

Then L came down with a pleased and happy counten- 
ance this time, and began carving the sirloin : " We have seen 
the light," he said. "Madam, may I help you to a little gravy, 
or a little horse-radish ? " or vrhat not ? 

I forget the name of the light; nor does it matter. It was 
a point off Newfoundland for which he was on the look-out, and 
so well did the " Canada " know where she was, that, between 
soup and beef, the captain had sighted the headland by which 
his course was lying. 

And so throuo:h storm and darkness, throudi fo^' and mid- 
night, the ship had pursued her steady way over the pathless 
ocean, and roaring seas, so surely that the officers who sailed 
her knew her place within a minute or two, and guided us with a 
wonderful providence safe onourwa}. Since the noble Cunard 
Company has run its ships, but one accident, and that through 
the error of a i^ilot, has happened on the line. 

By this little incident (hourly of course repeated, and trivial 
to all sea-going people) I own I was immensely moved, and 
never can think of it but with a heart full of thanks and awe. 
We trust our lives to these seamen, and how nobly they fulfil 
their trust ! They are, under heaven, as a providence for us. 
Whilst we sleep, their untiring watchfulness keeps guard over 
us. All night through that bell sounds at its season, and tells 
how our sentinels defend us. It ran^r when the " Amazon * 



ON RIBBONS. 



n 



was on fire, and chimed its heroic signal of duty, ana courage 
and honor. Think of the dangers these seamen undergo for 
us: the hourly peril and watch; the familiar storm; the 
dreadful iceberg; the long winter nights when the decks are 
as glass, and the sailor has to climb through icicles to bend the 
stiff sail on the yard ! Think of their courage and their kind- 
nesses in cold, in tempest, in Jiunger, in vvTCck ! " The women 
and children to the boats," says the captain of the '" Birken- 
head,'"' and, with the troops formed on the deck, and the crew 
obedient to the word of glorious command, the immortal ship 
goes dow^n. Read the story of the '' Sarah Sands : '*' — 

" SARAH SANDS. 

*' The screw steam-ship * Sarah Sands,' 1,330 registered tons, was chartered by the East 
India Company in the autumn of 1858, for the conveyance of troops to India. She was 
commanded by John Squire Castle. She took out a part of the 54th Regiment, upwards 
of 350 persons, besides the wives and children of some of the men, and the families of some 
of the officers. All went well till the nth November, when the ship had reached lat. 14 S., 
long. 56 E., upwards of 400 miles from the Mauritius. 

^' Between three and four p.m. on that day a very strong smell of fire was perceived 
arising from the after-deck, and upon going beiow into the hold, Captain Castle found it to 
be on fire, and immense volumes of smoke arising from it. Endeavors were made to reach 
the seat of the fire, but in vain ; the smoke and heat were too much for the men. There 
was, however, no confusion. Every order was obeyed with the same coolness and courage 
with which it was given. The engine was immediately stopped. All sail was taken in, and 
the ship brought to the wind, so as to drive the smoke and fire, which was in the after-part 
of the ship, astern. Others were, at the same time, getting fire-hoses fitted and passed to 
the scene of the fire. The fire, however, continued to increase, and attention was directed 
to the ammunition contained in the powder-magazines, which were situated one on each side 
the ship immediately above the fire. The starboard magazine was soon cleared. But by 
this time the whole of the after-part of the ship was sq much enveloped in smoke that it was 
scarcely possible to stand, and great fears were entertained on account of the port magazine. 
Volunteers were called for, and came immediately, and, under t)ie "guidance of Lieutenant 
Hughes, attempted to clear the port magazine, which they succeeded in doing, with the 
exception, as was supposed, of one or two barrels. It was most dangerous work. The men 
became overpowered with the smoke and heat, and fell ; and several, while thus engaged, 
were dragged up by ropes, senseless. 

I* The flames soon burst up through the deck, and running rapidly along the various 
cabins, set the greater part on fire. 

" In the meantime Captain Castle took steps for lowering the boats. There was a heavy 
gale at the time, but they were launched without the least accident. The soldiers were 
mustered on deck ; — there was no rush to the boats ; — and the men obeyed the word of com- 
mand as if on parade. The men were informed that Captain Castle did not despair of sav- 
ing the ship, but that they must be prepared to leave her if necessary. The women and 
children were lowered into the port lifeboat, under the charge of Mr. Verj', third officer, 
who had orders to keep clear of the ship uhtil recalled. 

" Captain Castle then commenced constructing rafts of spare spars. In a short time, 
three were put together, which would have been capable of sa\'ing a great number of those 
on board. Two were launched overboard, and safely moored alongside, and then a third 
was left across the deck forv^ard, ready to be launched. 

"In the meantime the fire had made great progress. 'The whole of the cabins were one 
body of fire, and at about 8.30 p.m. flames burst through the upper deck, and shortly after 
the mizen rigging caught fire. Fears were entertained of the ship paying off, in which ca^ 
the flames would have been swept forwards by the wind ; but fortunately the after-braces 
were burnt through, and the main-yard swung round, which kept the ship's head to wnd. 
About nine p.m., a fearful explosion took place in the port magazine, arising, no doubts 
from the one or two barrels of powder which it had been impossible to remove. By this 
time the ship was one body of flame, from the stem to the main rigging, and thinking it 
scarcely possible to save her. Captain Castle called Major Brett (then \\\ command of the 
troops, for the Colonel was in one of the boats) forward, and, telling him that he feared the 
^p was lost, requested him to eqdeavor to keep order amongst th(> troops till the last, but 



26 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. • 

at tht iam« time, to use ever>; exertion to check the fire. Providentially, the iron bulkhead 
in the after-part of the ship withstood the action of the flames, and here all eSortswere coo- 
tentrated to keep it cool. 

" ' No person,' says the captain, ' can describe the manner in which the men worked t» 
keep the fire back ; one party were below, keeping the bulk-head cool, and when several 
were dragged up senseless, fresh volunteers took their places, who were, however, soon in 
the same state. At about ten p.m., the maintopsail-yard took fire. Mr. Welch, one 
quartermaster, and four or five soldiers, went aloft with wet blankets, and succeeded in extin- ' 
guishing it, but not until the yard and mast were nearly^umt through. The work of fighting 
the fire below continued for hours, and about midnight it appeared that some impression 
was made ; and after that, the men drove it bac*k, inch by inch, until daylight, when they 
had completely got it under. The ship was now in a frightful plight. The after-part was 
literally burnt out — merely the shell remaining — the port quarter blown out by the explosion : 
fifteen feet o\ water in the hold.' 

"The gale still prevailed, and the ship wis rolling and pitching in a heavy sea, and tak- 
ing in large quantities of water abaft : the tanks, too, were rolling from side to side in the 
hold. 

*' As soon as the smoke was partially cleared away, Captain Castle got spare sails and 
blankets aft to stop the leak, passing two hawsers round the stern, and setting them up. 
The troops were employed baling and pumping. This continued during the whole 
morning. " 

" In the course of the day the ladies joined the ship. The boats were ordered alongside, 
but they found the sea too heavy to remain there. The gig had been abandoned during the 
night, and the crew, vmder Mr. Wood, fourth officer, had got into another of the boats. 
The troops were employed the remainder of the day baling and pumping, and the crew secur- 
ing the stem. All hands were employed during the following night baling and pumping, the 
boats being moored alongside, w^here they received some damage. At daylight on the 13th, 
the crew were employed hoisting the boats, the troops were working manfully baling and 
pumping. Latitude at noon, 13 deg. 12 min. south. At five p.m., the foresail and foi-etop- 
sail were set, the rafts were cut away, and the ship bore for the Mauritius. On Thursday, 
the 19th, she sighted the Island of Rodrigues, and arrived at Mauritius on Monday the 23d.'* 

The Nile and Trafalgar are not more glorious to our country, 
are not greater victories than these won by our merchant- 
seamen. And if you look in the Captains' reports of any 
maritime register, you wiU see similar acts recorded every day. 
I have such a volume for last year, now lying before me. In 
the second number, as I open it at hazard, Captain Roberts, 
master of the ship '* Em.pire," from Shields to London, reports 
how on the 14th ult. (the 14th December, 1859), he, *^ being off 
Whitby, discovered the ship to be on fir^ between the main 
hold and boilers : got the hose from the engine laid on, and 
succeeded in subduing the fire ; but only apparently ; for at 
seven the next morning, the * Dudgeon ' bearing S.S.E. seven 
miles' distance, the fire again broke out, causing the ship to be 
enveloped in flames on both sides of midships : got the hose 
again into play and all hands to work with buckets to combat 
with the fire. Did not succeed in stopping it till four p.m., to 
effect which, were obliged to cut away the deck and top sides, 
and throw overboard part of the cargo. The vessel was very 
much damaged and leaky : determined to make for the Hum- 
ber. Ship was run on shore, on the mud, near Grimsby 
harbor, with five feet of water in her hold. The donkey-engine 
broke down. The water increased so fast as to put out the 
furnace fires and render the ship almost unmanageable. On 



ON RIBBONS 



»7 



the tide flowing, a tug towed the ship off the muci, ana got her 
into Grimsby to repair." 

On the 2nd of November, Captain Strickland, of the '" Pur- 
chase " brigantine, from Liverpool to Yarmouth, U.S., " encount- 
ered heavy gales from W.X.\V. to W.S.W., in lat. 43° N., long. 
34^ W., in which we lost jib, foretopmast, staysail, topsail, and 
carried away the foretopmast stays, bobstays and bowsprit, 
headsails, cut-water and stern, also started the wood ends, 
which caused the vessel to leak. Put her before the wind and 
sea, and hove about twenty-live tons of cargo overboard to 
lighten the sMp forward. Slung myself in a bowline, and by 
means of thrusting 2^4 inch rope in the opening, contrived to 
stop a great portion of the leak. 

"" Dice7nber 16th. — The crew continuino: nig-ht and dav at the 
pumps, could not keep the ship free ; deemed .it prudent for 
the benefit of those concerned to bear up for the nearest port. 
On arriving in lat 48° 45' N., long. 230 W., observed a vessel 
with a signal of distress flying. Made towards her, when she 
proved to be the bark ' Carleton,' w^ater-logged. The captain 
and crew asked to be taken off. Hove to, and received them 
on board, consisting of thirteen men : and their ship w^as 
abandoned. We then proceeded on our course, the crew of 
the abandoned vessel assisting all they could to keep my ship 
afloat. We arrived at Cork harbor on the 27th ult.' 

Captain Coulson, master of the brig '* Othello," reports that 
his brig foundered off Portland, December 27 ; — encountering 
a strong gale, and shipping two heavy seas in succession, which 
hove the ship on her beam-ends. '' Observing no chance of 
saving the ship, took to the long boat, and wdthin ten minutes 
of leaving her saw the brig founder. We were picked up 
the same morning by the French ship * Commerce de Paris/ 
Captain Tombarel." 

Here, in a single column of a newspaper, w^hat strange, 
touching pictures do w^e find of seamen's dangers, vicissitudes, 
gallantry, generosity! The ship on fire — the captain in the 
gale slinging himself in a bowline to stop the leak — the French- 
man in the hour of danger coming to his British comrade's res- 
cue — the brigantine, almost a wreck, working up to the barque 
with the signal of distress flying, and taking oft' her crew of 
thirteen men. *^ We then proceeded on our course, the crew of 
the abandoned vessel assistifig all they could to keep my ship afloat J^ 
What noble, simple words ! What courage, devotedness, 
brotherly love ! Do they not cause the heart to beat, and th« 
cvei to fill ? 



si ROUNDABOVT pAPER^. 

This is what seamen do daily, and for one another. J5ne 
lights occasionally upon different stories. It happenec(^ not 
very long since, that the passengers by one of the great ocean 
steamers were wrecked, and after undergoing the mosi. severe 
hardships, were left, destitute and helpless, at a miseiv^l/le coal- 
ing port. Amongst them were old men, ladies, ana children. 
When the next steamer arrived, the passengers by that steamer 
took alarm at the haggard and miserable appearance of their 
unfortunate predecessors, and actually 7^emonstrated with thei? 
own captain^ ii7'ging him not to take the poo?' creatures on })oard. 
There was every excuse, of course. The last-arrived steamer 
was already dangerously full : the cabins were crowded ; there 
w^ere sick and delicate people on board — sick and delicate 
people who had paid a large price to the company for room, 
food, comfort, already not too sufficient. If fourteen of us are 
in an omnibus, wdll we see three or four women outside and say, 
*' Come in, because this is the last 'bus, and it rains ? '' Of 
course not : but think of that remonstrance, and of that Samari- 
tan master of the ^^ Purchase " brigantine ! 

In the winter of '53, I went from Marseilles to Civita 
Vecchia, in one of the magnificent P. and O. ships, the " Val- 
etta," the master of which subsequently did distinguished 
service in the Crimea. This was his first Mediterranean voy- 
age, and he sailed his ship by the charts alone, going into each 
port as surely as any pilot. I remember v/alking the deck at 
night v/ith this most skilful, gallant, well-bred and well-educated 
gentleman, and the glow of eager enthusiasm with which he 
assented, when I asked him whether he did not think a ribbon 
or ORDER would be welcome or useful in his service. 

Why is there not an Order of Britannia for" British sea- 
men ? In the Merchant and the Royal Navy alike, occur 
almost daily instances and occasions for the display of science, 
skill, bravery, fortitude in trying circumstances, resource in 
danger. In the first number of the Corn hill Magazine^ a friend 
contributed a most touching story of the M^Clintock expedition, 
in the dangers and dreadful glories of which he shared ; and 
the writer was a merchant captain. How many more are there 
(and, for the honor of England, may there be many like him !) 
— gallant, accomplished, high-spirited, enterprising masters of 
their noble profession ! Can our fountain of Honor not be 
brought to such men ? It plays upon captains and colonels in 
seemly profusion. It pours forth not illiberal rewards upon 
doctors and judges. It sprinkles mayors and aldermen. It 
bedews a painter now and again. It has spurted a baronetcy 



ox SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 



29 



upon two, and bestowed a coronet upon one noble man of 
letters. Diplomatists take their Bach in it as of right ; and it 
flings out a profusion of glittering stars upon the nobility of the 
three kingdoms. Cannot Britannia find a ribbon for her sailors ? 
The Navy, royal or mercantile, is a Service. The command of 
a ship, or the conduct of her, implies danger, honor, science, 
skill, subordination, good faith. It may be a victory, such as 
that of the '' Sarah Sands ; " it may be discovery, such as that 
of the " Fox ; " it may be heroic disaster, such as that of the 
'* Birkenhead ;" and in such events merchant seamen, as well 
as royal seamen, take their share. 

Why is there not, then, an Order of Britannia? One day 
a young officer of the '^ Eur}'alus " * may win it ; and, having 
just read the memoirs of Lord Dundonald, I know who ought 
to have the first Grand Cross. 



ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 

On the i3th day of April last I went to see a friend in a 
neighboring Crescent, and on the steps of the next house beheld 
a group something like that here depicted. A newsboy had 
stopped in his walk, and was reading aloud the journal which 
it was his duty to deliver ; a pretty orange-girl, with a heap of 
blazing fruit, rendered more brilliant by one of those great blue 
papers in which oranges are now artfully wrapped, leant over the 
railing and listened : and opposite the iiymphain discentefn there 
was a capering and acute-eared young satirist of a crossing- 
sweeper, who had left his neighboring professional avocation 
and chance of profit, in order to listen to the tale of the little 
newsboy. 

That intelligent reader, with his hand following the line as 
he read it out to his audience, was saying : — ** And — now — Tom 
— coming up smiling — after his fall — dee — delivered a rattling 
clinker upon the Benicia Boy's — potato-trap — but was met by a 
— punishei on the nose — which," &c., &:c. ; or words to that 
effect. Betty at 52 let me in, while^the boy was reading his 
lecture ; and, having been some twenty minutes or so in the 
house and paid my visit, I took leave. 

The little lecturer was still at work on the 51 doorstep, ancj 

♦ Prince Alfred was serving on board the frigate *' Euryalus'" when this was writieu. 



30 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



his audience had scarcely changed their position. Having re^d 
every word of the battle myself in the morning, I did not stay 
to listen further ; but if the gentleman who expected his paper 
at the usual hour that day experienced delay and a little disap- 
pointment I shall not be surprised. 

I am not going to expatiate on the battle. I have read in 
the correspondent's letter of a Northern newspaper, that in the 
midst of the company assembled the reader's humble servant 
was present, and in a very polite society, too, of " poets, clergy- 
men, men of letters, and members of both Houses of Parlia- 
ment." If so, I must ])ave walked to the station in my sleep, 
paid three guineas in a profound fit of mental abstraction, and 
returned to bed unconscious, for I certainly woke there about 
the time when history relates that the fight was over. I do not 
know whose colors I wore— the Benician's, or those of the 
Irish champion ; nor remember where the fight took place, 
which, indeed, no somnambulist is bound to recollect. Ought 
Mr. Sayers to be honored for being brave, or punished for being 
naughty ? By the shade of Brutus the elder, I don't know. 

In George II. 's time there was a turbulent navy lieutenant 
(Handsome Smith he was called — his picture is at Greenwich 
now, in brown velvet, and gold and scarlet ; his coat handsome, 
his waistcoat exceedingly handsome ; but his face by no m.eans 
the beauty) — there was, I say, a turbulent young lieutenant who 
was broke on a complaint of the French ambassador, for oblig- 
ing a French ship of war to lower her topsails to his ship at 
Spithead. But, by the King's orders, Tom was next day made 
Captain Smith. Well, if I were absolute king, I would send 
Tom Sayers to the mill for a month, and make him Sir Thomas 
on coming out of Clerkenwell. You are a naughty boy, Tom ! 
but then, you know, we ought to love our brethren, though ever 
so naughty. We are moralists, and reprimand you ; and you 
are hereby reprimanded accordingly. But in case England 
should ever have need of a few score thousand champions, who 
laugh at danger ; who cope with giants ; who, stricken to tht 
ground, jump up and gayly rally, and fall, and rise again, and 
strike, and die rather than yield— in case the country should 
need such men, and you should know them, be pleased to send 
lists of the misguided persons to the principal police stations,* 
where means may some day be found to utilize their wretched 
powers, and give their deplorable energies a right direction. 
Suppose, Tom, that you and your friends are pitted against 
an immense invader— suppose you are bent on holding the 
ground, and dying there, if need be — suppose it is life, freedonv 



OA^ SOME LATE GREAT VIC TO RIBS. 



SI 



honor, *home, you are fighting for, and there is a death-dealing 
sword or rifle in 3^our hand, with which you are going to resist 
some tremendous enemy who challenges your championship on 
your native shore ? Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to the death, 
and it is all right : kill him, and heaven bless you. Drive him 
into the sea, and there destroy, smash, and drown him j and 
let us sing Laudamus. In these national cases, you see, we 
override the indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your 
neighbor is very well, but suppose your neighbor comes over 
from Calais and Boulogne to rob you of ypur law^s, your liber- 
ties, your newspapers, your parliament (all of which some .dear 
neighbors of ours have given up in the most self-denying man- 
ner) : suppose any neighbor were to cross the water and pro 
pose this kind of thing to us ? Should^we not be justified in 
humbly trying to pitch him into the water } If it w^ere the King 
of Belgium himself we must do so. I mean that fighting, of 
course, is wrong ; but that there are occasions when, &c. — I 
suppose I mean that that one-handed fight of Savers is one of 
the most spirit-stirring little stories ever told : and, with every 
love and respect for Morality — my spirit says to her, '' Do, for 
goodness' sake, my dear madam, keep your tnie, and pure, and 
womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great 
kindness to stand a leetle aside, and just let us see one or two 
more rounds between the men. That little man with the one 
hand powerless on his breast facing yonder giant for hours, and 
felling him, too, every now and then ! It is the little *Java' 
and the ' Constitution ' over again." 

I think it is a most fortunate event for the brave Heenan, 
who has acted and written since the battle with a true warrior's 
courtesy, and with a great deal of good logic too, that the battle 
was a drawn one. The advantage v/as all on Mr. Savers' side. 
Say a young lad of sixteen insults me in the street, and I try 
and thrash him, and do it. Well, I have thrashed a young lad. 
You great, big tyrant, couldn't you hit one of your own size 1 
But say the lad thrashes me ? In either case I walk away dis- 
comfited : but in the latter, I am positively put to shame. Now, 
when the ropes were cut from, that death-grip, and Sir Thomas 
released, the gentleman of Benicia was confessedly blind of 
one eye, and speedily afterwards was blind of both. Could 
Mr. Sayers have held out for three minutes, for five minutes, 
for ten minutes more ? He says he could. So we say we could 
have held out, and did, and had beaten off the enemy at 
Waterloo, even if -the Prussians hadn't come up. The opinions 
differ pretty much according to the nature of the opinants. I 



22 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

say the Duke and Tom could have held out, that they meant 
to" hold out, that they did hold out, and that there has been 
listifying enough. That crowd which came in and stopped the 
fight ought to be considered like one of those divine clouds 
which the gods send in Homier : 

'' Apollo shrouds 
The god-like Trojan in a veil of clouds." 

It is the best way of getting the god-like Trojan out of the 
scrape, don't you see ? The nodus is cut ; Tom is out of 
chancery ; the Benicia Boy not a bit the Vv^orse, nay, better than 
if he had beaten the little man. He has not the humiliation of 
conquest. He is greater, and will be loved more hereafter by 
the gentle sex. SuppQ3e he had overcome the god-like Trojan ? 
Suppose he had tied Tom's corpse to his cab-wheels, and driven 
to Farnham, smoking the pipe of triumph t Faugh ! the great 
hulking conqueror ! Why did you not hold your hand from 
yonder hero ? Everybody, I say, was relieved by that oppor- 
tune appearance of the British gods, protectors of native valor, 
who interfered, and " withdrew " their champion. 

Now, suppose six-feet-two conqueror, and five-feet-eight 
beaten ; would Sayers have been a whit the less gallant and 
meritorious 1 If Sancho had been allowed really to reign in 
Barataria, I make no doubt that, with his good sense and kind- 
ness of heart, he would have devised some means of rewarding 
the brave vanquished, as well as the brave victors in the Bara- 
tarian army, and that a champion who had fought a good fight 
would have been a knight of King Don Sancho's orders, what- 
ever the upshot of the combat had been. Suppose Wellington 
overwhelmed on the plateau of Mont St. John ; suppose Wash- 
ington attacked and beaten at Valley Forge — and either sup- 
position is quite easy — and what becomes of the heroes ? They 
would have been as brave, honest, heroic, wise ; but their g]or}% 
v^diere would it have been ? Should we have had their portraits 
hanging in our chambers t have been familiar with their his- 
tories? have pondered over their letters, common lives, and 
daily sayings .^ There is not only merit, but luck which goes 
to making a hero out of a gentleman. Mind, please you, I am 
not saying that the hero is after all not so very heroic j and have 
not the least desire to grudge him his merit because of his good 
fortune. 

Have you any idea whither this Roundabout Essay on some 
recent great victories is tending? Do you suppose that by 
those words I mean Trenton, Brandywine, Salamanca, Vittoria, 



ON SOME LATE GREAT VICTORIES. 



33 



and so forth ? By a great victory I can't mean that affair at 
Farnham, for it was a drawn hght. Where, then, are the 
victories, pray, and when are we coming to them ? 

My good sir, you will perceive that in this Nicasan discourse 
1 have o«ily as yet advanced as far as this — that a hero, whether 
he wins or loses, is a hero ; and that if a fellow will but be 
honest and courageous, and do his best, we are for paying all 
honor to him. Furthermore, it has been asserted that Fortune 
has a good deal to do with the making of heroes-; and thus 
hinted for the consolation of those who don't happen to be 
engaged in any stupendous victories, that, had opportunity so 
served, they might have been heroes too. If you are not, 
friend, it is- not your fault, whilst I don't wish to detract from 
any gentleman's reputation who is. There. My worst enemy 
can't take objection to that. The point might have been put 
more briefly perhaps ; but, if you please, we will not argue that 
question. 

Well, then. The victories which I wish especially to com- 
memorate in this paper, are the six great, complete, prodigious, 
and undeniable victories, achieved by the corps which the 
editor of the Cornhill Afagazine has the honor to command. 
When I seemed to speak disparagingly but now of generals, it 
was that chief I had in my I (if you will permit me the expres- 
sion). I wished him not to be elated by too much prosperity ; I 
warned him against assuming heroic imperatorial airs, and 
cocking his laurels too jauntily over his ear. I was his con- 
science, and stood on the splashboard of his triumph-car, 
whispering, *^ Ho7ninem manento teT As we roiled along the 
way, and passed the vreathercocks on the temples, I saluted 
the symbol of the goddess Fortune with a reverent awe. *'We 
have done our little endeavor," I said, bowing my head, " and 
mortals can do no more. But we might have fought bravely, 
and not won. We might have cast the coin, calling ^ Head,' 
and lo ! Tail might have come uppermost." O thou Ruler ci 
^^ictories ! — thou Awarder of Fame ! — thou Giver of Crowns 
(and shillings) — if thou hast smiled upon us, shall we not be 
thankful ? There is a Saturnine philosopher, standing at the 
door of his book-shop, who, I fancy, has a pooh-pooh expres- 
sion as the triumph passes. (I can't see quite clearly for the 
laurels, which have fallen down over my nose.) One hand is 
reining in the two white elephants that draw the car ; I raise 
the other hand up to — to the laurels, and pass on, waving him a 
graceful recognition. Up the Hill of Ludgate — around the 
Pauline Square — by the side of Chepe — until it reaches our 



34 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



own Hill of Corn — the procession passes. The Imperator is 
bowing to the people ; the captains of the legions are riding 
round the car, their gallant minds struck by the thought, "• Have 
we not fought as well as yonder fellow, swaggering in the 
chariot, and are w^e not as good as he ? " Granted, with all my 
heart, my dear lads. When your consulship arrives, may you 
be as fortunate. When these hands, now growing old, shall 
lay down sword and truncheon, may you mount the car, and 
ride to the temple of Jupiter. Be yours the laurel then. Neque 
me myrtus dedecet^ looking cosily down from the arbor where I 
sit under the arched vine. 

I fancy the Imperator standing on the steps of the temple 
(erected by Titus) on the Mons Frumentarius, and addressing 
the citizens : " Quirites ! " he says, '' in our campaign of six 
months we have been engaged six times, and in each action we 
have taken near upon a hundred thousand prisofiers. Go to ! 
What are other magazines compared to our magazine ? (Sound, 
trumpeter!) What banner is there Jike that of Cornhill .? You, 
philosopher yonder 1 " (he shirks under his iiiantle.) "Do you 
know what it is to have a hundred and ten thousand readers ? 
A hundred thousand readers ? a hundred thousand buyers I '' 
(Cries of " No ! "— " Pooh ! '' " Yes, upon my honor ! '' " Oh, 
come ! " and murmurs of applause and derision") — " I say more 
than a hundred thousand purchasers — and I bc'ieve as much as 
a millwn readers ! '^ (Immense sensation.) " To these have 
we said an unkind word 1 We have enemies ; have we hit them 
an unkind blow ? Have we sought to pursue party aims, to 
forward private jobs, to advance selfish schemes ? The only 
persons to whom wittingly we have given pain are some who 
have volunteered for our corps — -and of these volunteers w^e 
have had thousafidsJ^ (Murmurs and grumbles.) "" What com- 
mander, citizens, could place all these men — could make offi- 
cers 'of all these men V (cries of ''No — no ! " and laughter) — 
'* could say, ' I accept this recruit, though he is too short for 
our standard, because he is poor, and has a mother at home 
who wants bread ? ' could enroll this other, who is too weak to 
bear arms, because he says, ' Look, sir, I shall be stronger 
anon.' The leader of such an army as ours must select his 
men, not because they are good and virtuous, but because they 
are strong and capable. To these our ranks are ever open, and 
in addition to the warriors who surround me " — (the generals 
look proudly conscious) — '' I tell you, citizens, that I am in 
treaty with other and most tremendous champions, who will 
march by the side of our veterans to the achievement of fresh 



THOJ^.VS IN THE CUSHIOX. 3- 

victories. Now, blow trumpets ! Bang, ye gongs ! and drum- 
mers, drub the thundering skins ! Generals and chiefs, we go 
to sacrifice to the gods." 

Crowned with flowers, the captains enter the temple, the 
other Magazines walking modestly behind them. The people 
huzza ; and, in some instances, kneel and kiss the fringes of 
the robes of the warriors. The Philosopher puts up his shut- 
ters, and retires into his shop, deeply moved. In ancient times, 
Pliny {apud Smith) relates it was the custom of the Imperator 
" to paint his whole body a bright red ; " and, also, on ascend- 
ing the Hill, to have some of the hostile chiefs led aside " to 
the adjoining prison, and put to death." We propose to dis- 
pense wdth both these ceremonies. 



THORNS IN THE CUSHION. 

In the Essav with v/hich this volume commences, the Corn- 
hill Magazine was likened to a ship sailing forth on her voyage, 
and the Captain uttered a very sincere prayer for her prosperity. 
The dangers of storm and rock, the vast outlay upon ship and 
cargo, and the certain risk of the venture, gave the chief officer 
a feeling of no small anxiety; for who could say from what 
quarter danger might arise, and how his owner^s property might 
be imperilled ? After a six months' voyage, we with very 
thankful hearts could acknowledge our good fortune : and tak- 
ing up the apologue in the Roundabout manner, we composed 
a triumphal procession in honor of the Magazine, and imagined 
the Imperator thereof riding in a sublime car to return thanks 
in the Temple of Victor}'. Cornhill is accustomed to grandeur 
and greatness, and has witnessed, every nintlt^of November, 
for I don't know how^ many centuries, a prodigious annual 
pageant, chariot, progress, and flourish of trumpetn.^ ; and be- 
ing so very near the Mansion House, I am sure the reader will 
understand how the idea cf pageant and procession came nat- 
urally to my mind. The imagination easily supplied a gold 
coach, eight cream-colored horses of your true Pegasus breed, 
huzzaing multitudes, running footmen, and clanking knights in 
armor, a chaplain and a sword-beaj-er with a muff on his head, 
scowling out of the coach-windov/, and a Lord Mayor all crimson, 
fur, gold-chain, and white ribbons, solemnly occupying the place 



36 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

of State. A playful fancy could have carried the matter farther, 
could have depicted the feast in the Egyptian Hall, the Minis- 
ters, Chief Justices, and right reverend prelates taking their seats 
round about his lordship, the turtle and other delicious viands, 
and Mr. Toole behind the central throne, bawling out to the 
assembled guests and dignitaries : " My lord So-and-so, niv 
Lord What-d'ye-call-'im, my Lord Etcaetera, the Lord Mayor 
pledges you all in a loving-cup." Then the noble proceedings 
come to an end ; Lord Simper proposes the ladies ; the com- 
pany rises from the table, and adjourns to coffee and mufnns. 
The carriages of the nobility and guests roll back to the West, 
The Egyptian Hall, so bright just now, appears in a twilight 
glimmer, in which waiters are seen ransacking the dessert, and 
rescuing the spoons. His lordship and the lady Mayoress go 
into their private apartments. The robes are doffed, the collar 
and w^hite ribbons are removed. The Mayor becomes a mar^ 
and is pretty surely in a fluster about the speeches which he has 
just uttered; remembering too well now, wretched creature, 
the principal points which he didn't make when he rose to 
speak. He goes to bed to headache, to care, to repentance, 
and, I dare say, to a dose of something which his body-physician 
has prescribed for him. And there are ever so raam' men in 
the city who fancy that man happy ! 

Now, suppose that all through that 9th of November his 
lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us 
say, during all dinner-time — through which he has been obliged 
to grin and mumble his poor old speeches. Is he enviable ? 
Would you like to change with his lordship ? Suppose that 
bumper which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fackins 
of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination of senna ? 
Away ! Remove the golden goblet, insidious cup-bearer ! You 
now begin to perceive the gloomy moral which I am about to 
draw. 

Last month we sang the song of glorification, and rode in 
the chariot of triumph. It was all very well. It was right to 
huzza, and be thankful, and cry, Bravo, our side ! and besides, 
you know, there was the enjoyment of thinking how pleased 
Brown and Jones, and Robinson (our dear friends)would be at 
this announcement of success. But now that the performance 
is over, my good sir, just step into my private room, and see 
that it is not all pleasure — this winning of successes. Cast your 
eye over those newspapers; over those letters. See what the 
critics say of your harmless jokes, neat little trim sentences, 
and pet waggeries! Why, you are no better than an idiot. 



THORxVS IN THE CUSHION, 



37 



you are drivelling ; your powers have left you ; this always 
overrated writer is rapidly sinking to, &c. 

This is not pleasant ; but neither is this the point. It may 
be the critic is right, and the author wrong. It may be that the 
archbishop's sermon is not so fine as some of those discourses 
twenty years ago which used to delight the faithful in Granada. 
Or it may be (pleasing thought !) that the critic is a dullard, 
and does not understand what he is writing about. Everybody 
who has been to an exhibition has heard visitors discoursing 
about the pictures before their faces. One says, '' This is very 
well ; " another says, " This is stuff and rubbish ; " another 
cries, "Bravo ! this is a masterpiece ; and each has a right 
to his opinion. For example, one of the pictures I admired 
most at the Royal Academy is by a gentleman on whom I 
never, to my knowledge, set eyes. This picture is No. 346, 
'•Moses,'' by Mr. S. Solomon. I thought it had a great inten- 
tion, I thought it finely drawn and composed. It nobly rep- 
resented, to my mind, the dark children of the Eg^-ptian bond- 
age, and suggested the touching story. My newspaper says : 
"' Two ludicrously ugly women, looking at a dingy baby, do 
not form a pleasing object ; " and so good-by, Mr. Solomon. 
Are not most babies served so in life ? and doesn't Mr. Robin- 
son consider Mr. Brown's cherub an ugly, squalling little brat } 
So cheer up, Mr. S. S. It may be the critic who discoursed on 
your baby is a bad judge of babies. When Pharaoh's kind 
daughter found the child, and cherished and loved it, and took 
it home, and found a nurse for it, too, I dare say there were 
grim, brickdust-colored chamberlains, or some of the tough, old, 
meagre, yellow princes at court, who never had children them- 
selves, who cried out, '* Faugh ! the horrid little squalling 
wretch ! " and knew he would never come to good ; and said, 
" Didn't I tell you so 1 " when he assaulted the Egyptian. 

Never mind then, Mr. S. Solomon, I say, because a critic 
Dooh-poohs your work of art — your Moses — your child — your 
foundling. Why; did not a wiseacre in Blackwood's Magazine 
lately fall foul of " Tom Jones?" O hypercritic ! So, to be 
sure, did good old Mr. Richardson, who could write novels 
himself — but you and I, and Mr. Gibbon, my dear sir, agree in 
giving our respect, and wonder, and admiration, to the brave 
old iiiaster. 

In these last words I am supposing the respected reader to 
be endowed with a sense of humor, which he may or may not 
possess ; indeed, don't we know many an honest man who can 
no more comprehend a joke than he can turn a tune. But I 



38 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

take for granted, my dear sir, that you are brimming over with 
fun — you mayn't make jokes, but you could if you would— 
you know you could : and in your quiet way you enjoy them 
extremely. Now many people neither make them, nor under- 
stand them when made, nor like them when understood, and 
are suspicious, testy, and angry with jokers. Have you ever 
watched an elderly male or female — an elderly " party," so to 
speak, who begins to find out that some young wag of the com- 
pany is '^ chaffing '' him ? Have you ever tried the sarcastic or 
Socratic method with a child 1 Little simple he or she, in the 
innocence of the simple heart, plays some silly freak, or makes 
some absurd remark, which you turn to ridicule. The little 
creature dimly perceives that you are making fun of him, 
writhes, blushes, grows uneasy, bursts* into tears, — upon my 
word it is not fair to try the weapon of ridicule upon that inno- 
cent young victim. The awful objurgatory practice he is ac- 
customed to. Point out his fault, and lay bare the dire con- 
sequences thereof : expose it roundly, and give him a proper, 
solemn, moral whipping — but do not attempt to castigare rideiido. 
Do not laugh at. him writhing, and cause all the other boys in 
the school to laugh. Remember your own 3^oung days at 
school, my friend — the tingling cheeks, burning ears, bursting 
heart, and passion of desperate tears, with which you looked 
up, after having performed some blunder, whilst the doctor 
held you to public scorn before the class, and cracked his great 
clumsy jokes upon you — helpless, and a prisoner ! Better the 
block itself, and the lictors, with their fasces of birch-twigs, 
than the miaddening torture of those jokes ! 

Now, with respect to jokes — and the present company of 
course excepted — many people, perhaps most people, are as 
infants. They have little sense of humor. They don't like 
jokes. Raillery in writing annoys and offends them. The 
coarseness apart, I think I have met very, very few women who 
liked the banter of Swift and Fielding. Their simple, tender 
natures revolt at laughter. Is the satyr always a wicked brute at 
heart, and are they rightly shocked at his grin, his leer, his 
horns, hoofs, and ears t Fi donc^ le vilain monstre^ with his 
shrieks, and his capering crooked legs ? Let him go and get a 
pair of well-wadded black silk stockings, and pull them over 
those horrid shanks ; put a large gown and bands over beard 
and hide ; and pour a dozen of lavender-water into his lawn 
handkerchief, and cry, and never make a joke again. It shall 
all be highly distilled poesy, and .perfumed sentiment, and 
gushing eloquence ; and the foot s/ia'?i't peep out, and a plague 



THORNS LV THE CUSHION. 3^) 

take it. Cover it up with the surpUce. Out with your cambric, 
dear ladies, and let us all whimper together. 

Now, then, hand on heart, we declare that it is not the fire 
of adverse critics which afflicts or frightens the editorial bosom. 
They may be right ; they may be rogues who have a personal 
spite ; they may be dullards who kick and bray as their nature is 
to do, and prefer thistles to pineapples ; they mzy be conscien- 
tious, acute, deeply learned, delightful judges, who see your 
joke in a moment, and the profound wisdom lying underneath. 
Wise or dull, laudatory or otherwise, we put their opinions aside. 
If they applaud, we are pleased : if they shake their quick pens, 
and fly off with a hiss, we resign their favors and put on all the 
fortitude we can muster. I would rather have the lowest man's 
good word than his bad one, to be sure ; but as for coaxing a 
compliment, or wheedling him into good-humor, or stopping his 
angry mouth with a good dinner, or accepting his contributions 
for a certain Magazine, for fear of his barking or snapping 
elsewhere — allon done! These shall not be our acts. Bow-wow, 
Cerberus ! Here shall be no sop for thee, unless — unless 
Cerberus is an uncommonly good dog, when we shall bear no 
malice because he flew at us from our neighbor's gate. 

What, then, is the main grief you spoke of as annoying you 
— the toothache in the Lord Mayor's jaw, the thorn in the 
cushion of the editorial diair ? It is there. Ah 1 it stings me 
now as I write. It comes with almost every morning's post. 
At night I come home, and take my letters up to bed (not 
daring to open themj, and in the morning I find one, two, three 
thorns on my pillow. Three I extracted yesterday ; two I found 
this morning. They don't sting quite so sharply as they did ; 
but a skin is a skin, and they bite, after all, most wickedly. It 
is all very line to advertise on the Magazine, '' Contributions 
are only to be sent to Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., and not 
to the Editor's private residence." My dear sir, how little you 
know man- or woman-kind, if you fancy they will take that sort 
of warning ! How am I to know, (though to be sure, I begin 
to know now,) as I take the letters off the tray, which of those 
envelopes contains a real bond fide letter, and which a thorn ? 
One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn-letter, 
and kept it without opening. This is what I called a thorn- 
letter :— 

"Camberwell, June 4. 

** Sir,— May I hope, may I entreat, that you v\^ll favor me by perusing the enclosed Hnes, 
and that they may be found worthy of insertion in the Cornhill Magazine. We have 
known better days, sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, ai c- little brother!' 



^o ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

and sisters who look to me. I do my utmost as a governess to support them. I toil at night 
when they are at rest, and my own hand and brain are alike tired. If 1 could add but a 
Utile to our means by my pen, many of my poor invalid's wants might be supjplied, and I 
could procure for her comforts to which she is now a stranger. Heaven knows it is not for 
want of will or for want oi energy on my part, that she is now in ill-health, and our .\ittle 
household almost v/ithout bread. Do — do cast a kind glance oyer mjr poem, and if you can 
help us, the widow, the orphans will bless you! I remain, sir, in anxious expectancy, 

•* Your faithful servant, 

" S. S. S." 

And enclosed is a little poem or two, and an envelope with its 
penny stamp — heaven help us ! — and the writer's name and 
address. 

Now you see what I mean by a thorn. Here is the case put 
with true female logic. " I am poor ; I am good ; I am ill ; I 
work hard ; I have a sick mother and hungry brothers and 
sisters dependent on me. You can help us if you will." And 
then I look at the paper, with the thousandth part of a faint 
hope that it may be suitable, and I find it won't do ; and I 
knew it wouldn't do ; and why is this poor lady to appeal to my 
pity and bring her poor little ones kneeling to my bedside, and 
calling for bread which I c^n give them if I choose ? No day 
passes but that argument ad misencoi-'diam is used. Day and 
night that sad voice is crying out for help. Thrice it appealed 
to me yesterday. Twice this morning it cried to me : and I 
have no doubt when I go to get my hat, I shall find it with its 
piteous face and its pale family about it, waiting for me in the 
hall. One of the immense advantages which women have over 
our sex is, that they actually like to read these letters. Like 
letters ? O mercy on us ! Before I was an editor I did not 
like the postman much : — but now ! 

A very common way with these petitioners is to begin with 
a fine flummery about the merits and eminent genius of the 
person whom they are addressing. But this artifice, I state 
publicly, is of no avail. When I see that kind of herb, I know 
the snake within it, and fling it away before it has time to 
sting. Away, reptile, to the waste-paper basket, and thence to 
the flames ! 

But of these disappointed people, som6 take their disap- 
pointment and meekly bear it. Some hate and hold you their 
enemy because you could not be their friend. Some, furious 
and envious, say : "Who is this man who refuses what I offer, 
and how dares he, the conceited coxcomb, to deny my merit } " 

Som.etimes my letters contain not mere thorns, but blud- 
geons. Here are two choice slips from that noble Irish oak, 
which has more than once supplied alpeens for this meek and 
unoffending skull : — 



THORNS IX 7 HE CUSHION. 4 1 

" Theatre Royal, Donnybrook. 

** Sir, — I have just finished reading the first portion of your Tale, Lovel the Widowery 
and am much surprised at the unwarrantable strictures you pass thereon on the corps dt 
ballet. 

'' I have been for more than ten years connected with the theatrical profession, and I 
beg to assure you that the majority of the corps de ballet are virtuous, well-conducted girls, 
and, consequently, thai snug cottages are not taken for them in the Regent's Park. 

*' I also have 10 inform you that theatrical managers are in the habit of speaking good 
EngHsh, possibly better English than authors. 

" You either know nothing of the subject in question, or you assert a wilful falsehood. 

*' I am happy to say that the characters of the corps de ballet^ as also those of actors and 
actresses, are superior to the snarlings of dyspeptic libellers, or the spiteful attacks and 
brutumfulme7i of ephemeral authors. 

" I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

''The Editor of the Cornhill Magazine. ' * " A. B. C.*' 

*' Theatre Royal, Donnybrook. 

« Sir,— I have just read in the Cornhill Magazine lor January, the first portion of a 
Tale written by you, and entitled Lovel the Widoiver. 

" In the production in question you employ all your malicious spite (and you have great 
capabilities that way) in trving to degrade the 'character of the corps de ballet. When you 
imply that the majority of ballet-girls have villas taken for them in the Regent's Park, 
1 say you tell a deliberate falsehood. 

" Ilaving been brought up to the stage from infancy, and, though now an actress, having 
been seven years principal dancer at the opera, I am competent to speak on the subject. I 
am only surprised that so vile a libeller as yourself should be allowed to preside at the 
Dramatic Fund dinner on the 22d instant. I think it would be much better if you were to 
reform your own life, instead of telling lies of those who are immeasurably your superiors. 

" Yours in supreme disgust, 

"A. D." 

The signatures of the respected writers are altered, and for 
the site of their Theatre Royal an adjacent place is named 
which (as I may have been falsely informed) used to be famous 
for quarrels, thumps, and broken heads. But, I say, is this an 
easy chair to sit on, when you are liable to have a pair of such 
shillelaghs flung at it ? And, prithee, what was all the quarrel 
about? In the little history of ''Lovel the Widower" I de- 
scribed, and brought to condign punishment, a certain wretch 
of a ballet-dancer, who lived splendidly for a while on ill-gotten 
gains, had an accident, and lost her beauty, and died poor, 
deserted, ugly, and every way odious. In the same page, other 
little ballet-dancers are described, wearing homely clothing, 
doing their duty, and carr}'ing their humble savings to the 
family at home. But nothing will content my dear correspon- 
dents but to have me declare that the majority of ballet-dancers 
have villas in the Regent's Park, and to convict me of " de- 
liberate falsehood." Suppose, for instance, I had chosen to 
introduce a red-haired washerwoman into a story 1 I might get 
an expostulatory letter saying, " Sir, in stating that the majority 
of washerwomen are red-haired, you are a liar! and you had 
best not speak of ladies who are immeasurably your superiors." 
Or suppose I had ventured to describe an illiterate haber- 
dasher ? One of the craft might write to me, " Sir, in describing 
haberdashers as illiterate, you utter a wilful falsehood. Haber- 



4^ ROUXDABOUT PAFERS. 

dashers use much better English than authors/' It is a mi& 
take, to be sure. I have never said what my correspondents 
say I say. There is the text under their noses, but what if 
they choose to read it their own way t " Hurroo, lads ! Here's 
for a fight. There's a bald head peeping out of the hut. 
There's a bald head ! It must be Tim Malone's." And 
whack 1 come down both the bludgeons at once. 

Ah me ! we wound where we never intended to strike ; we 
create anger where vre never meant harm ; and these thoughts 
are the thorns in our Cushion. Out of mere malignity, I sup- 
pose, there is no man who would like to make enemies. But 
here, in this editorial business, you can't do otherwise : and a 
queer, sad, strange, bitter thought it is, that must cross the 
mind of many a public man : '^ I)o what I will, be innocent or 
spiteful, be generous or cruel, there are A and B, and C and D, 
who will hate me to the end of the chapter — to the chapter's 
end — to the Finis of the page — when hate, and envy, and for- 
tune, and disappointment shall be over.*' 



ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS, 

A GRANDSON of the late Rev. Dr. Primrose (of Wakefield, 
vicar) wrote me a little note from his country living this morn- 
ing, and the kind fellow^ had the precaution to write '' No thorn " 
upon the envelope, so that, ere I broke the seal, my mind might 
be relieved of any anxiety lest the letter should contain one of 
those lurking stabs which are so painful to the present gentle 
writer. Your epigraph, my dear P., shows your kind and artless 
nature ; but don't you see it is of no u^e .? People who are 
bent upon assassinating you in the manner mentioned will 
write " No thorn " upon their envelopes too ; and you open 
the case, and presently out flies a poisoned stiletto, which 
springs into a man's bosom, and makes the wretch howl with 
anguish. When the bailiffs are after a man, they adopt all 
sorts of disguises, pop out on him from all conceivable corners, 
and tap his miserable shoulder. His vvife is taken ill; his 
sweetheart, who remarked his brilliant, too brilliant appearance 
at the Hyde Park review, will meet him at Cremorne, or where 
you will. The old friend who has owed him that money these 
five years will meet him at so-and-so and pay. By one bait or 



0y SCREEXS IX DIXIXG-KOOMS. 43 

Other the victhn is hooked, netted, landed, and down goes the 
basket-lid. It is not your wife, your sweetheart, your friend, 
who is going to pay you. It is Mr. Nab the bailiff. Yon 

\x\Q\\ you are caught. You are off in a cab to Chancery 

Lane. 

You know, I say? Why should you know? I make no 
manner of doubt you 'never were taken by a bailiff in your life. 

I never was. I have been in two or three debtors' prisons, 
but not on my own account. Goodness be praised ! I mean 
you can't escape your lot ; and Nab only stands here metaphor- 
ically as the watchful, certain, and untiring officer of Mr Sheriff' 
Fate. Why, my 'dear Primrose, this morning along with youi 
letter comes another, bearing the w^ell-known superscription ol 
another old friend, which I open without the least suspicion, 
and what do I find ? A few lines from my friend Johnson, it 
is true, but they are written on a page covered with feminine 
handwriting. *' Dear ]\Ir. Johnson," says the writer, " I have 
just been perusing \vith delight a most charming tale byJ:he 
Archbishop of Cambray. It is called ' Telemachus ; ' and I 
think it would be admirably suited to the Conihill Magaz'me. 
As you know the Editor, will you have the great kindness, dear 
Mr. Johnson, to communicate with him persofially (as that is 
much better than writing in a roundabout way to the Publishers', 
and waiting goodness knows how long for an answer), and state 
my readiness to translate this excellent and instructive stor}'. 
I do not wish to breathe a word against ' Lovel Parsonage.' 
*Framley the Widower,' or any of the novels which have 
appeared in the Cor?ihill Magazine^ but I ai7i sure * Telemachus ' 
is as good as new to English readers, and in point of interest 
and morality, y"^?/-," &c., (Sic, &c. 

There it' is. I am stabbed through Johnson. He has lent 
himself to this attack on me. He is weak about women. Other 
strong men are. He submits to the common lot, poor fellow. 
In my reply I do not use a word of unkindness. I write him 
. back gently, that I fear ' Telemachus ' won't suit us. He can 
send the letter on to his fair correspondent. But however soft 
the answer, I question whether the wrath will be turned away. 
Will there not be a coolness between him and the lady ? and is 
it not possible that henceforth her fine eyes will look with dark- 
ling glances upon the pretty orange cover of our Magazine ? 

Certain writers, they say, have a bad opinion of women. 
Now am I ver}' whimsical in supposing that this disappointed 
candidate will be hurt at her rejection, and angry or cast down 
according to her nature ? '' Angr}% indeed ! " says Juno, gather- 



,14 • ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

ing up her purple robes and royal raiment. *' Sorry, indeed !^' 
cries Minerva, lacing on her corselet again, and scowling undei 
her helmet. (I imagine the well-known Apple case has just been 
argued and decided.) ** Hurt, forsooth ! Do you suppose we 
care for the opinion of that hobnailed lout of a Paris t Do you 
suppose that I, the Goddess of Wisdom, can't make allowances 
for mortal ignorance, and am so base as to bear malice against 
a poor creature who knows no better t You little know the 
goddess nature when you dare to insinuate that our divine 
minds are actuated by motives so ba§e. A love of justice in- 
fluences us. We are above mean revenge. We are too mag- 
nanimous to be angry at the award of such 'a judge in favor 
of such a creature." And rustling out their skirts, the ladies 
walk away together. This is all very well. You are bound to 
believe them. They are actuated by no hostility : not they. 
They bear no malice — of course not. But w^hen the Trojan 
war occurs presently, which side will they take ? Many brave 
souls will be sent to Hades. Hector will perish. Poor old 
Priam's bald numskull wuU be cracked, and Troy town will 
burn, because Paris prefers golden-haired Venus to ox-eyed 
Juno and gray-eyed Miner\'a. 

The last Essay of this Roundabout Series, describing the 
grief and miseries of the editoral chair, was written, as the 
kind reader will ackno\\ ledge, in a mild and gentle, not in a 
warlike or satirical spirit. I showed how cudgels w^ere applied ; 
but surely, the meek object of persecution hit no blows in 
return. The beating did not hurt much, and the person as- 
saulted could afford to keep his good-humor ; indeed, I ad- 
mired that brave though illogical little actress, of the T. R. 
D-bl-n, for her fiery vindication of her profession's honor. I 
assure her I had no intention to tell 1 — s — well, let us say, 
monosyllables — about my superiors : and I wish her nothing 
but vvell, and when Macmahon (or shall it be Mulligan ?) Rci 
(T Irlande ascends his throne, I hope she may be appointed pro- 
fessor of English to the princesses of the royal house. Nuper 
in former days — I too have militated ; sometimes, as I now 
think, unjustly ; but always, I vow, without personal rancor. 
Which of us has not idle words to recall, flippant jokes to re- 
gret? Have you never committed an imprudence ? Have you 
never had a dispute, and found out that you w^ere wrong ? So 
much the w^orse for you. Woe be to the man qui croit toujours 
avoir raison. His anger is not a brief madness, but a permanent 
mania. His rage is not a fever-fit, but a black poison inflaming 
him, distorting his judgment, disturbing his rest, embittering his 



& 



ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS, 



45 



cup, gnawing at his pleasures, causing him more cruel suffering 
than ever he can inflict on the enemy. O la belle morale ! As I 
write it, I think about one or two little affairs of my own. There 
is old Dr. Squaretoso (he certainly was very rude to me, and 
that's the fact) ; there is Madame Pomposa (and certainly her 
ladyship's behavior was about as cool as cool could be). Never 
mind, old Squaretoso : nevermind, Madame Pomposa! Here 
is a hand. Let us be friends, as we once were, and have no 
more of this rancor. 

I had hardly sent that last Roundabout Paper to the printer 
(which, I submit, was written in a peaceable and not unchristian 
frame of mind), when Saturday came, and with it, of course 
my Saturday Review, I remember at New York coming down 
to breakfast at the hotel one morning, after a criticism had ap- 
peared in the New York Herald,, in which an Irish writer had 
given me a dressings for a certain lecture on Swift. Ah ! my 
dear little enemy of the T. R. D., what were the cudgels in 
your little billet-doux compared to those noble New York shil- 
lelaghs .^ All through the Union, the literary sons of Erin have 
marched alpeen-^\.o(^ in hand, and in every city of the States 
they call each other and ever}^body else the finest names. 
Having come to breakfast, then, in the public room, I sit down, 
and see — that the nine people opposite have all got Neiu Yo?'k 
Heralds in their hands. One dear little lady, whom I knew, 
and who sat opposite, gave a pretty blush, and popped her 
paper under the tablecloth. I told her I had my whipping 
already in my own private room, and begged her to continue 
her reading. I may have undergone agonies, you see, but 
every^ man who has been bred at an English public school 
comes away from a private interview with Dr. Birch with a calm, 
even a smiling face. And this is not impossible, when you are 
prepared. You screw your courage up — you go through the 
business. You come back and take your seat on the form, 
showing not the least symptom of uneasiness or of previous 
unpleasantries. But to be caught suddenly up, and whipped 
in the bosom of your family — to sit down to breakfast, and cast 
your innocent eye on a paper, and find, before you are aware, 
that the Saturday Monitor or Black Monday Listriutor has 
hoisted you and is laying on — that is indeed a trial. Or per- 
haps the family has looked at the dreadful paper beforehand, 
and weakly tries to hide it. " Where is the Instructor,, or the 
Monitor I " say you. " Where is that paper ? " says mamma 
to one of the young ladies. Lucy hasn^t it. Fanny hasn't 
seen it. Emily thinks that the governess has it. At last, out 



46 kOUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

it is brought, that awful paper! Papa is amazingly tickled with 
the article oti Thomson ; thinks that show up of Johnson is 
very lively ; and now— heaven be good to us ! — he has come to 
the critique on himself : — '• Of all the rubbish which we have 
had from Mr. Tomkins, we do protest and vow that this last 
cartload is," &c. Ah, poor Tomkins ! — but -most of all, ah ! poor 
Llrs. Tomkins, and poor Emily, and Fanny, and Lucy, who 
have to sit by and see pate7fa7niHas put to the torture ! 

Now, on this eventful Saturday, I did not cry, because it was 
not so much the Editor as the Publisher of the Cornhill Magazine 
\vho was brought out for a dressing ; and it is wonderful how gal- 
lantly one bears the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer 
should be taken to task about his books, is fair, and he must 
abide the praise or the censure. But that a publisher should 
ue criticized for his dinners, and for the conversation which 
did not take place there, — is this tolerable press practice, 
legitimate joking, or honorable warfare ? I have not the honor 
to know my next-door neighbor, but I make no doubt that he 
receives his friends at dinner ; I see his wife and children pass 
constantly ; I even know the carriages of some of the people 
v,-ho call upon him, and could tell their names. Now, suppose 
his servants were to tell mine wdiat the doings are next door, 
who comes to dinner, what is eaten and said, and I w^ere to 
publish an account of these transactions in a newspaper, I 
could assuredly get money for the report ; but ought I to write 
it. and what would you think of me for doing so .^ 

And suppose, Mr. Saturday Reviewer — you censor mo7'um^ 
you who pique yourself (and justly and honorably in the main) 
upon your character of gentleman, as well as of writer, — sup- 
pose, not that you yourself invent and indite absurd twaddle 
about gentlemen's private meetings and transactions, but pick 
this wretched garbage out of a New York street, and hold it up 
for your readers' amusement — don't you think, my friend, that 
you might have been better employed t Here, in my Saturday 
Revieiv, and in an American paper subsequently ^ent to me, 
I light, astonished, on an account of the dinners of my friend 
and publisher, which are described as " tremendously heav>''," 
of the conversation (which does not take place), and of the 
guests assembled at the table. I am informed that the pro- 
prietor of the Cornhill^ and the host on these occasions, is " a 
vexy good man, but totally unread ; " and that on my asking 
him whether Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he 
said, " God bless my soul, my dear sir, there's no person by 
the name of Johnson here, nor any one behind the screen," 



ON SCREENS IN DINING-ROOMS. 



47 



and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I am informed by 
the same New York correspondent that I have touched up 
a contributor's article ; that I once said to a literary gentle- 
n;ian, who was proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his 
writing, " Ah ! I thought I recognized your hoof in it/' I 
am told by the same authority that the Cornhill Magazme 
" shows symptoms of being on the wane," and having sold 
nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) 
*' should think forty thousand was now about the mark/' Then 
the graceful writer passes on to the dinners, at which it appears 
the Editor of the Magazine "" is the great gun, and comes out 
with all the geniality in his power."' 

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue '^. Suppose 
the publisher (to recall the words of my friend the DubUn actor 
of last month) is a gentleman to the full as well informed as 
those whom he invites to his table ? Suppose he never made 
the remark, beginning — "God bless my soul, my dear sir,"&c., 
nor anything resembling it ? Suppose nobody roared with 
laughing? Suppose the Editor of the Cornhill Magazine never 
"touched up" one single line of the contribution which bears 
"marks of his hand t " Suppose he never said to any literary 
gentleman, " I recognized your hoof^' in any periodical what- 
ever.^ Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to 
New York " considered to be about the mark," should be 
between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there 
they are) ? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly 
blundering and untrue, would any one wonder ? Ah ! if we 
we had only enjoyed the happiness to numiber this writer among 
the contributors to~our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy 
confidence his presence would impart to our meetings ! He 
would find that "poor Mr. Smith " had heard that recondite 
anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen ; and as for " the 
great gun of those banquets," with what geniality should not 
I " come out " if I had an amiable companion close by me 
dotting down my conversation for the New York Times I 

Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome. They 
are fair subjects for just censure or praise. But woe be to you, 
if you allow private rancors or animosities to influence you in the 
discharge of your public duty. In the little court where you are 
paid to sit as judge, as critic, you owe it to your employers, to 
your conscience, to the honor of your calling, to deliver just 
sentences \ and you shall have to answer to heaven for your 
dealings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the Bench, 
The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary \calling, th© 



48 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary 
men, — don't we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily > 
As dear Sam Johnson sits behind the screen, too proud to show 
his threadbare coat and patches among the more prosperous 
brethren of his trade, there is no want of dignity in him^ in that 
homely image of labor ill-rewarded, genius as yet unrecognized, 
independence sturdy and uncomplaining. But Mr, Nameless, 
behind the publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the company 
and the meal, catching up scraps of the jokes, and noting down 
the guests' behavior and conversation, — what a figure his is ! 
Allans, Mr. Nameless ! Put up your notebook ; walk out of 
the hall ; and leave gentlemen alone who would be private, and 
wish you no harm. 



1 



TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 



I wonder whether those little silver pencil-cases with a 
movable almanac at the butt-end are still favorite implements 
with boys, and whether pedlars still hawk them about the 
country ? Are there pedlars and hawkers still, or are rustics 
and children grown too sharp to deal with them ? Those pencil- 
cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not of much use. 
The screw, upon which the movable almanac turned, was 
constantly getting loose. The i of the table would work from 
its moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might 
be, and you would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was 
the 23^ of the month (which was absurd on the face of the 
thing), and in a word your cherished pencil-case an utterly 
unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this a matter of wonder. 
Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's pocket. You 
had hard-bake in it ; marbles, kept in your purse when the 
money was all gone ; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly 
and supplied with a little bit of gold, long since — prodigal little 
son 1 — scattered amongst the swine — I mean amongst brandy- 
balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. 
You had a top and string ; a knife ; a piece of cobbler's wax ; 
two or three bullets; a Little Warbler; and I, for my part, 
remember, for a considerable period, a brass-barrelled pocket- 
pistol (whi^h would fire beautifully, foi with it I shot off a 



TUNB RIDGE TOYS. 4^ 

button from Butt Majors jacket) ; — with all these things, and 
ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your pockets, and 
your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual movement, 
how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twisted 
out of its place now^ and again — your pencil-case to be bent — 
your liquorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the 
cobbler's wax, your bull's-eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel 
of your pistol, and so forth. 

In the month of June, thirty-seven years ago, I bought one 
of those pencil-cases from a boy wdiom I shall call Hawker, and 
who was in my form. Is he dead .^ Is he a millionaire 1 ■ Is 
he a bankrupt now ? He was an immense screws at school, and 
I believe to this day that the value of the thing for which I 
owed and eventually paid three-and-sixpence, was in reality not 
one-and-nine. 

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused 
myself with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this 
pleasure wore off. The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and 
Hawker, a large and violent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant 
as a creditor. His constant remark was, ''When are you 
going to pay me that three-and-sixpence ? What sneaks your 
relations must be } They come to see you. You go out to them 
on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you anything ! 
Don't tell me^ you little humbug ! " and so forth. The truth is 
that my relations were respectable ; but my parents were making 
a tour in Scotland ] and my friends in London, whom I used 
to go and see, were most kind to me, certainly, but somehow 
never tipped me. That term of May to August, 1823, passed 
in agonies then, in consequence of my debt to Hawker. What 
w-as the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in comparison with 
the doubt and torture of mind occasioned by the sense of the 
debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling eyes 
and gloomy, coarse reminders ? How was I to pay off such a 
debt out of sixpence a week t ludicrous ! Why did not some 
one come to see me, and tip me t Ah ! my dear sir, if you 
have any little friends at school, go and see them, and do the 
natural thing by them. You won't miss the sovereign. You 
don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't fancy 
they are too old — try 'em. And they will remember you, and 
bless you in future days ; and their gratitude shall accompany 
your dreary after life ; and they shall meet you kindly when 
thanks for kindness are scant. O mercy ! shall I ever forget 
that sovereign you gave me, Captain Bob ? or the agonies of 
being in debt to Hawker ? In that very term, a relatioa of 

\ 



s« 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



mine was going to India. I actually was fetched from school 
in order to take leave of him. I am afraid I told Hawker of 
this circumstance. I own I speculated upon my friend's giving 
me a pound. A pound ? Pooh ! A relation going to India, 
and deeply affected at parting from his darling kinsman, might 
give five pounds to the dear fellow i =^ =* =^ There \vas 
Hawker when I came back — of course there he was. As he 
looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He mut- 
tered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My re- 
lation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, 
asked me with much interest about my progress at school, 
heard me construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin 
work on which I was then engaged ; gave me a God bless you, 
and sent me back to school ; upon my word of honor, without 
so much as a half-crown ! It is all very well, my dear sir, to 
say that boys contract habits of expecting tips from their 
parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth. 
Avaricious ! fudge ! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee 
eating, which they do not carry into after life. On the con- 
trary, I wish I did like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one 
could have now for five shillings, if one could but pick it off 
the pastrycook's tray ! No. If you have any little friends at 
school, out with your half-crowns, my friend, and impart to 
those little ones the fleeting joys of their age. 

Well, then. At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy- 
tide holidays came, and I Vv^as to go to my parents, who were 
at Tunbridge Wells. My place in the coach was taken by my 
tutor's servants — " Bolt-in-Tun," Fleet Street, seven o'clock m 
the morning, was the word. My tutor, the Rev. Edward 

p ^ to whom I hereby present my best compliments, had a 

parting interview with me : gave me my little account for my 
governor : the remaining part of the coach-hire ; five shillings 
for my own expenses ; and some five-and-twenty shillings on an 
old account which had been overpaid, and was to be restored 
to my family. 

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six, Ouf! 
what a weight it was off my mind ! (He was a Norfolk boy, 
and used to go home from' Mrs. Nelson's '' Bell Inn/' Aldgatft 
—but that is not to the point.) The next morning, of course, 
we were an hour before the time. I and another boy shared a 
hackney - coach ; t\vo-and-six : porter for putting luggage on 
coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. 
Rasherwell, my companion, went into the- " Bolt-in-Tun " coffee- 
room, and had a good breakfast. I couldn't ; because, though 



TUNB RIDGE TOYS. jx 

I had five-and-twenty shillings of my parents' money, I had 
none of my own, you see. 

I certainly intended to go without breakfast, and still re- 
member how strongly 1 had that resolution in my mind. But 
there was that hour to wait. A beautiful August morning — I 
am ver}' hungry. There is Rasherwell '* tucking " away in the 
coffee-room. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been 
coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a court by 
mere chance — I vow it was by mere chance — and there I see a 
coffee-shop with a placard in the window, Coffee, Tnwpence, 
Round of buttered toast^ Twopence. And here am I, hungr}', 
penniless, with five-and-twent}' shillings of my parents' money 
in my pocket. 

What would you have done ? You see I had had my 
money, and spent it in that pencil-case affair. The five-and- 
twenty shillings were a trust — by me to be handed over. 

But then would my parents wish their only child to be 
actually without breakfast ? Having this money, and being so 
hungry, so very hungr}^, mightn't I take ever so little ? ^Mightn't 
I at home eat as much as I chose ? 

Well, I went into the coffee-shop, and spent fourpence. I 
remember the taste of the coffee and toast to this day — a pe- 
culiar, muddy, not-sweet-enough, most fragrant coffee— a rich, 
rancid, yet not-buttered enough, delicious toast. The waiter 
had nothing. At any rate, fourpence I know was the sum I 
spent. And the hunger appeased, I got on the coach a guiltv 
being. 

At the last stage, — what is its name } I have forgotten in 
seven-and-thirt}^ years, — there is an inn with a little green and 
trees before it ; and by the trees there is an open carriage. It 
is our carriage. Yes, there are Prince and Blucher, the horses : 
and my parents in the carriage. Oh 1 how I had been count- 
ing the days until this one came I Oh I how happy had I been 
to see them yesterday ! But there was that fourpence. All the 
journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee poisoned 
me. 

I w-as in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I 
forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. 
I pull out the twent\--four shillings and eightpence wdth a tremb- 
ling hand. 

"Here's your money/' I gasp out, "which Mr. P owes 

you, all but fourpence. I owed three-and-sLxpence to Hawkei 
out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had none left, and 1 
took fourpence of yours_. and had some coffee at a shop." 



52 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this 
confession. 

*' My dear boy/' says the governor, *' why didn't you go and 
breakfast at the hotel ? " 

" He must be starved," says my mother. 

I had confessed ; I had been a prodigal ; I had been taken 
back to my parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime 
as yet, or a very long career of prodigality ; but don't w^e know 
that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own, will take a 
thousand pounds w^hen occasion serves, bring his parents' gray 
heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his own to the gal- 
lows ? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon whom our friend' 
Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by playing 
pitch-and-toss on a tombstone : playing fair, for what w^e know : 
and even for that sin he was promptly caned by the beadle. 
The bamboo was ineffectual to cane that reprobate's bad 
courses out of him. From pitch-and-toss he proceeded to man- 
slaughter if necessary : to highway robbery ; to Tyburn and the 
rope there. Ah ! heaven be thanked, my parents' heads are 
still above the grass, and mine still out of the noose. 

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common 
and the rocks, the strange familiar place which I remember 
forty years ago. Boys saunter over the green with stumps' 
and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop by on the riding-master's 
hacks. I protest it is Cra7np^ Riding Afaster, as it used to be 
in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must be 
at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman with a 
bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as our 
novels ? Oh ! how delightful they were ! Shades of Valan- 
cour, awful ghost of jNIanfroni, how I shudder at your appear- 
ance ! Sweet image of Thaddeus of W^arsaw, how often has 
this almost infantile hand tried to depict you in a Polish cap 
and richly embroidered tights ! And as for Corinthian Tom in 
light blue pantaloons and Hessians, and Jerry Hawthorn from 
the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendor of reai 
life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the wit 
I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, 
with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparkling 
vivacious rattle .^ 

Who knows ? They 7nay have kept those very books at 
the library still — at the well-remembered library on the Pan- 
tiles, where they sell that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. I 
will go and see. I ^\ent my way to the Pantiles, the queer 
little old-world Pantiles, where a hundred years since, so much 



t> 



TUNBRIDGE TOYS. 53 

good company came to take its pleasure. Is it possible, that 
in the past centuty, gentlefolks of the first rank (as I read 
lately in a lecture on George II. in the Cornhill Magazifie) as- 
sembled here and entertained each other with gaming, dancing, 
fiddling, and tea ? There are fiddlers, harpers, and trumpeters 
performing at this moment in a weak little old balcony, but 
where is the fine company? Where are the earls, duchesses, 
bishops, and magnificent embroidered gamesters ? A half- 
dozen of children and their nurses are listening to the musi- 
cians ; an old lady or two in a poke bonnet passes, and for the 
rest, I see but an uninteresting population of native tradesmen. 
As for the library, its window is full of pictures of burly theolo- 
gians, and their works, sermons, apologues, and so forth. Can 
I go in and ask the young ladies at the counter for '* Manfroni, 
or the One-Handed Monk," and "Life in London, or the Ad- 
ventures of Corinthian Tom, Jeremiah Hawthorn, Esq., and 
their friend Bob Logic ? " — absurd. I turn away abashed from 
the casement — from the Pantiles — no longer Pantiles, but 
Parade. I stroll over the Common and survey the beautiful 
purple hills around, twinkling with a thousand bright villas, 
w^hich have sprung up over this charming ground since first I 
saw it. What an adm.irable scene of peace and plenty ! What 
a delicious air breathes over the heath, blows the cloud 
shadows across it, and murmurs through the full clad trees ! 
Can the world show a land fairer, richer, more cheerful ? I 
see a portion of it when I look up from the window at which I 
write. But fair scene, green woods, bright terraces gleaming 
in sunshine, and purple clouds swollen with summer rain — nay, 
the very pages over which my head bends — disappear from be- 
fore my eyes. They are looking backw-ards, back into forty 
years off, into a dark room, into a little house hard by on the 
Common here, in the Bartlemy-tide holidays. The parents 
have gone to town for two days : the house is all his own and 
a grim old maidservant's, and a little boy is seated at night in 
the lonely drawing-room, poring over " Manfroni, or the One- 
Handed Monk,'' so frightened that he scarcely dares to turn 
round. 



54 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



DE yUVENTUTE. 

Our last paper of this veracious and roundabout series re- 
lated to a period which can only be historical to a great number 
of readers of this Magazine. Four I saw at the station to-day 
with orange-covered books in their hands, who can but have 
known George IV. by books, and statues, and pictures. Elderly 
gentlemen were in their prime, old men in their middle age, 
when he reigned over us. His image remains on coins ; on a 
picture or two hanging here and there in a Club or old-fash- 
ioned dining-room ; on horseback, as at Trafalgar Square, for 
example, w^here I defy any monarch to look miore uncomfortable. 
He turns up in sundry memoirs and histories which have been 
published of late days ; in Mr. Massey's ** History ; '' in the 
*• Buckingham and Grenville Correspondence; '' and gentle- 
men who have accused a certain writer of disloyalty are re- 
ferred to those volumes to see whether the picture drawn of 
George is overcharged. Charon has paddled him off ; he has 
mingled with the crowded republic of the dead. His effigy 
smiles from a canvass or two. Breechless he bestrides his 
steed in Trafalgar Square. I believe he still wears his robes 
at Madame Tussaud's (Madame herself having quitted Baker 
Street and life, and found him she modelled t'other side the 
Stygian stream). On the head of a five-shilling piece we still 
occasionally come upon him, with St. George, the dragon- 
slayer, on the other side of the coin. Ah me ! did this George 
slay many dragons ? Was he a brave, heroic champion, and 
rescuer of virgins ? Well ! well 1 have you and I overcome all 
the dragons that assail us ? come alive and victorious out of all 
the caverns which we have entered in life, and succored, at 
risk of life and limb, all poor distressed persons in whose naked 
limbs the dragon Poverty is about to fasten his fangs, whom 
the dragon Crime is poisoning with his horrible breath, and 
about to crunch up and devour ? O my royal liege ! O my 
"gracious prince and warrior ! You a champion to fight that 
monster 1 Your feeble spear ever pierce that slimy paunch or 
plated back 1 See how the flames come gurgling out of his 
red-hot brazen throat ! What a roar ! Nearer and nearer he 
trails, with eyes flaming like the lamps of a railroad engine. 
How he squeals, rushing out through the darkness of his tun- 
nel I Now he is near. Now he is here. And now — ^what ?— 



DE yUVENTUTE. 55 

lance, shield, knight, feathers, horse and all ? O horror, hor- 
ror ! Next day, round the monster's cave, there lie a few bones 
more. You, who wish to keep yours in your skins, be thankful 
that you are not called upon to go out and fight dragons. Be 
grateful that they don't sally out and swallow you. Keep a 
wise distance from their caves, lest you pay too dearly for 
approaching them. Remember that years passed, and whole 
districts were ravaged, before the warrior came who was able 
to cope with the devouring monster. When that knight does 
make his appearance, with all my heart let us go out and wel- 
come him with our best songs, huzzas, and laurel wreaths, and 
eagerly recognize his valor and victory. But he comes only 
seldom. Countless knights were slain before St. George won 
the battle. In the battle of life are we all going to try for the 
honors of championship 1 If we can do our duty, if we can 
keep cur place pretty honorably through the combat, let us 
say, Laus Deo I at the end of it, as *the firing ceases, and the 
night falls over the field. 

The old were middle-aged, the elderly were in their prime, 
then, thirty years since, when yon royal George was still fight- 
ing the dragon. As for you, my pretty lass, with your saucy hat 
and golden tresses tumbled in your net, and you, my spruce 
young gentleman in your mandarin's cap (the young folks at the 
country-place where I am staying are so attired), your parents 
were unknown to each other, and wore short frocks and short 
jackets, at the date of this five-shilling piece. Only to-day I 
met a dog-cart crammed with children — children with mus- 
taches and mandarin caps — children with saucy hats and hair- 
nets — children in short frocks and knickerbockers (surely the 
prettiest boy's dress that has appeared these hundred years) — 
children from twenty years of age to six; and father, with 
mother by his side, driving in front — and on father's counten- 
ance I saw that very laugh which I remember perfectly in the 
time when this crown-piece was coined — in his time, in King 
George's time, when we were school-boys seated on the same 
form. The smile was just as broad, as bright, as jolly, as I re- 
member it in the past — unforgotten, though not seen or thought 
of, for how many decades of years, and quite and instantly fam- 
iliar, though so long out of sight. 

Any contemporary of that coin who takes it up and reads 
the inscription round the laurelled head, '' Georgius IV. Britan- 
niarum Rex. Fid: Def. 1823," if he will but look steadily enough 
at the round, and utter the proper incantation. I dare say may 
conjure back his life there. Look well, my elderly friend, and 



\ 



56 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

tell me what you see ? First, I see a Sultan, with hair, beauti- 
ful hair, and a crown of laurels round his head, and his name is 
Georgius Rex. Fid. Def., and so on. Now the Sultan has dis- 
appeared ; and what is that I see 't A boy, — a boy in a jacket. 
He is at a desk ; he has great books before him, Latin and 
Greek books and dictionaries. Yet, but behind the great books, 
which he pretends to read, is a little one, with pictures, which 
he is really reading. It is — yes, I can read now — it is the 
''Heart of Mid Lothian," by the author of "Waverley" — or, 
no, it is '' Life in London, or the adventures of Corinthian Tom, 
Jeremiah Hawthorn, and their friend Bob Logic," by Pierce 
Egan ; and it has pictures — oh, such funny pictures ! As he 
reads, there comes behind the boy, a man, a dervish, in a black 
gown, like a woman, and a black square cap, and he has a book 
in each hand, and he seizes the boy who is reading the picture 
book, and lays his head upon one of his books, and smacks i 
with the other. The boy makes faces, and so that picture dis.- 
appears. 

Now the boy has grown bigger. He has got on a black 
gown and cap, something like the dervish. He is at a table, 
with ever so many bottles on it, and fruit, and tobacco ; and 
other young dervishes come in. They seem as if they were 
singing. To them enters an old moollah, he takes down their 
names, and orders them all to go to bed. What is this ? a car- 
riage, with four beautiful horses all galloping — a man in red is 
blowing a trumpet. Many young men are on the carriage — 
one of them is driving the horses. Surely they won't drive into 

that? ah ! they have all disappeared. And now I see one 

of the yo'ang men alone. He is walking in a street — a dark 
street — presently a light comes to a window. There is the 
shadow of a lady who passes. He stands there till the light 
goes out. Now he is in a room scribbling on a piece of paper, 
and kissing a miniature every now and then. They seem to be 
lines each pretty much of a length. I can read hearty smarts 
dart ; Mary ^ fairy ; Cupid ^ stupid ; true, you ; and never mind 
what more. Bah ! it is bosh. Now see, he has got a gown on 
again, and a wig of white hair on his head, and he is sitting 
with other dervishes in a great room full of them, and on a 
throne in the middle is an old Sultan in scarlet, sitting before a 
desk, and he wears a wig too — and the young man gets up and 
speaks to him. And now what is here ? He is in a room with 
ever so many children, and the miniature hanging up. Can it 
be a likeness of that woman who is sitting before that copper 
urn, with a silver vase in her hand, from which she is pouring 



DE yUVENTUTE. jy 

hot liquor into cups ? Was she ever a fairy ? She is as fat as 
a hippopotamus now. He is sitting on a divan by the fire. He 
has a paper on his knees. Read the name of the paper. It is 
the Siiperfi7ie R/znew. It inclines to think that Mr. Dickens is 
not a true gentleman, that Mr. Thackeray is not a true gentle- 
man, and that when the one is pert and the other is arch, we, 
the gentlemen of the Superfine Review^ think, and think righth', 
that we have some cause to be indignant. The great cause 
why modern humor and modern sentimentalism repel us, is that 
they are unwarrantably familiar. Now, Mr. Sterne, the Super- 
fine Reviriver thinks, "was a true sentimentalist, because he 
was above all thi?igs a true gentleman." The flattering inference 
is obvious : let us be thankful for having an elegant moralist 
watching over us, and learn, if not too old, to imitate his high- 
bred politeness and catch his unobtrusive grace. If we are 
unwarrantably familiar, we know who is not. If we repel by 
pertness, we know w4io never does. If our language offends, 
we know whose is always modest. O pity ! The vision has 
disappeared off the silver, the images of youth and the past are 
vanishing away ! We who have lived before railways were 
made, belong to another world. In how many hours could the 
Prince of Wales drive from Brighton to London, with a light 
carriage built expressly, and relays of horses longing to gallop 
the next stage ? Do you remember Sir Somebody, the coach- 
man of the Age, who took our half-crown so affably? It was 
only yesterday ; but what a gulf between now and then ! Then 
was the old world. Stage coaches, more or less swift, • riding- 
horses, pack-horses, highv/aymen, knights in armor, Norman 
invaders, Roman legions, Druids, Ancient Britons painted blue, 
and so forth — all these belong to the old period. I will con- 
cede a halt in the midst of it, and allow that gunpowder and 
printing tended to modernize the w^orld.- But your railroad 
starts the new era, and we of a certain age belong to the new 
time and the old one. We are of the time of chivalr}' as well 
as the Black Prince or Sir Walter ]\Ianny. We are of the age 
of steam. We have stepped out of the old world on to " Bru- 
nei's " vast deck, and across the waters ingens patet tellus. 
Towards what new continent are we wending t to w^hat new- 
laws, new manners, new politics, vast__new expanses of liberties 
unknown as yet, or only surmised ? I used to know a man who 
had invented a flying-machine. " Sir," he would say, '^give me 
but five hundred pounds, and I will make it. It is so simple of 
construction that I tremble daily lest some other person should 
light upon and patent my discovery." Perhaps faith was want- 



58 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

ing ; perhaps the five hundred pounds. He is dead, and some- 
body else must make the flying-machine. But that will only be 
a step forward on the journey already begun shice we quitted 
the old world. There it lies on the other side of yonder em- 
bankments. You young folks have never seen it ; and Waterloo 
is to you no more than Agincourt, and George IV. than Sar- 
danapalus. We elderly people have lived in that prae-railroad 
world, which has passed into limbo and vanished from under us. 
I tell you it was firm under our feet once, and not long ago. 
They have raised those railroad embankments up, and shut off 
the old world that was behind them. Climb up that bank on 
which the irons are laid, and look to the other side — it is gone. 
There is no other side. Try and catch yesterday. Where is 
it 1 Here is a limes newspaper, dated Monday 26th, and this 
is Tuesday 27th. Suppose you deny there was such a day as 
yesterday ? 

We who lived before railways, and survive out of the an- 
cient world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the ark. 
The children v.ill gather round and say to us patriarchs, '*Tell 
us, grandpapa, about the old world." And we shall mumble 
our old stories ; and we shall drop off one by one ; and there 
will be fewer and fewer of us, and these very old and feeble. 
There will be but ten prae-railroadites left : then three — then 
two — then one — then o ! If the hippopotamus had the least 
sensibility (of which I cannot trace any signs either in his hide 
or his face); I think he would go down to the bottom of his 
tank, and never come up again. Does he not see that he be- 
longs to bygone ages, and that his great hulking barrel of a 
body is out of place in these times ? Wliat has he in common 
with the brisk young life surrounding him ? In the watches of 
the night, when the keepers are asleep, when the birds are on 
one leg, when even the little armadillo is quiet, and the monkeys 
have ceased their chatter,— he, I mean the hippopotamus, and 
the elephant, and the long-necked giraffe, perhaps m*ay lay 
their heads together and have a colloquy about the great silent 
antediluvian world which they remember, where mighty mon- 
sters .floundered through the ooze, crocodiles basked on the 
banks, and dragons darted out of the caves and waters before 
men were made to slay them. We who lived before railways 
are antediluvians — we must pass away. We are growing scarcer 
ever}^ day ; and old — old- — very old relicts of the times when 
George was still fighting the Dragon. 

Not long since, a company of horse-riders paid a visit to 
our watering-place. We went to see them, and I bethought 



4^£ JUVENTUTE, 59 

me that young Walter Juvenis, who was in the place, might 
like also to witness the performance. A pantomime is not 
always amusing to persons w^ho have attained a certain age ; 
but a boy at a pantomime is always amused and amusing, and 
to see his pleasure is good for most hypochondriacs. 

We sent to Walter's mother, requesting that he might join 
us, and the kind lady replied that the boy had already been at 
the morning performance of the equestrians, but was most 
eager to go in the evening likewise. And go he did ; and 
laughed at all i\Ir. Merr}'man's remarks, though he remembered 
them with remarkable accuracy and insisted upon waiting to 
the ver}^ end of the fun, and was only induced to retire just 
before its conclusion by representations that the ladies of the 
party would be incommoded if they w-ere to wait and undergo 
the rush and trample of the crowd round about. When this 
fact was pointed out to him, he yielded at once, though with a 
heavy heart, his eyes looking longingly tow^ards the ring as we 
retreated out of the booth. We were scarcely clear of the 
place, w^hen w-e heard " God save the Queen/' played by the 
equestrian band, the signal that all w^as over. Our companion 
entertained us w-ith scraps of the dialogue on our way home — 
precious crumbs of wdt which he had brought away from that 
feast. He laughed over them^again as we walked under the 
stars. He has them now, and takes them out of the pocket 
of his memory, and crunches a bit, and relishes it with a senti- 
mental tenderness, too, for he is, no doubt, back at school by 
this time ; the holidays are over ; and Doctor Birch's young 
friends have reassembled. 

Queer jokes, v.hich caused a thousand simple mouths to grin ! 
As the jaded Merryman uttered them to the old gentleman 
with the w^hip, some of the old folks in the audience, 1 dare say, 
indulged in reflections of their own. There was one joke — I 
utterly forget it— but it began with Merryman saying what he 
liad for dinner. He had mutton for dinner, at one o'clock, 
after which /^ he had to come to business y And then came the 
point. . Walter Juvenis, Esq., Rev. Doctor Birch's, Market 
Rodborough, if you read this, will you please send me a line, 
and let me know wdiat was the joke Mr. Merr}'man made about 
having his dinner 1 You remember well enough. But do I 
want to know ? Suppose a boy takes a favorite, long-cherished 
lump of cake out of his pocket, and offer you a bite ? Merci) 
The fact is I doitt care much about knowing that joke of Mn 
Merr}-man's. 

But whilst he was talking about his dinner, and his mutton^ 



6o ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

and his landlord, and his business, I felt a great interest about 
Mr. M. in private life — about his wife, lodgings, earnings, and 
general history, and I dare say was forming a picture of those 
in my mind : — wife cooking the mutton ; children waiting for 
it ; Merryman in his plain clothes, and so forth ; during which 
contemplation the joke was uttered and laughed at, and Mr, 
M., resuming his professional duties, w^as tumbling over head 
and heels. Do not suppose I am going sicut est mos, to indulge 
in moralities about buffoons, paint, motley, and mountebanking. 
Nay, Prime Ministers rehearse their jokes; Opposition leaders 
prepare and polish them ; Tabernacle preachers must arrange 
I hem in their minds before they utter them. All I mean is, 
that I would like to know any one of these performers thoroughly 
and out of his uniform : that preacher, and why in his travels 
this and that points truck him ; w^ierein lies his power of pathos, 
humor, eloquence ;— that Minister of State, and what moves 
him, and how his private heart is working ; — I would only say 
that, at a certain time of life certain things cease to interest : 
but about some things when we cease to care, W'hat will be the use 
of life, sight, hearing ? Poems are written, and we cease to 
admire. Lady Jones invites us, and we yawn ; she ceases to 
invite us, and we are resigned. The last time I saw a ballet at 
the opera-^oh ! it is many yearS ago — I fell asleep in the stalls, 
wagging my head in insane dreams, and I hope affording 
amusement to tlie company, wdiile the feet of five hundred 
nymphs were cutting flicflacs on the stage at a few paces' 
distance. Ah, I remember a different state of things ! Credite 
posteri. To see those nymphs — gracious powers, how beautiful 
they were ! That leering, painted, shrivelled, thin-armed, thick- 
ankled old thing, cutting dreary capers, coming thumping down 
on her board out of time — that an opera-dancer ? Pooh ! My 
dear Walter, the great difference between 7ny time and yours, 
who wall enter life some two or three years hence, is that now 
the dancing women and singing women are ludicrously old, out 
of time, and out of tune ; the paint is so visible, and the dinge 
and wrinkles of their wretched old cotton stockings, that I am 
surprised how anybody can like to look at them. And as for 
laughing at me for falling asleep, I can't understand a man of 
sense doing otherwise. • In ?ny time, d> la ho7me heure. In the 
reign of George IV., I give you my honor, all the dancers at 
the opera w^ere as beautiful as Houris. Even in William IV.'s 
time, when I think of Duvernay prancing in as the Bayadere, — 
I say it was a vision of loveliness such as mortal eyes can't see 
now-a-davs. How well I remember the tune to which she used 



DE yUVEXTUTE. 6l 

to appear ! Kalecl used to say to the Sultan, " My lord, a troop 
of those dancing and singing gurls called Bayaderes ap- 
proaches," and, to the clash of cymbals, and the thumping of 
my heart, in she used to dance ! There has never been anything 
like it — never. There never will be — I laugh to scorn old 
people who tell me about your Xoblet, your Montessu, your 
Vestris, your Parisot — pshaw, the senile twaddlers ! And the 
impudence of the young men, with their music and their dancers 
of to-day ! I tell you the women are dreary old creatures. I 
tell you one air in an opera is just like another, and they send 
all rational creatures to sleep. Ah, Ronzi de Begnis, thou 
lovely one ! Ah, Caradori, thou smiling angel ! Ah, ^^alibran ! 
Nay, I will come to modem times, and acknowledge that Lablache 
was a ver}- good singer thirt}^ years ago (though Porto was the 
boy for me) : and then we had Ambrogetti, and Curioni, and 
Donzelli, a rising young singer. 

But what is more certain and lamentable is the decay of 
stage beauty since the days of George IV. Think of Sontag ! 
I remember her in Othello and the Donna del Lago in ^28. I 
remember being behind the scenes at the opera (where numbers 
of us young fellows of fashion used to go), and seeing Sontag 
let her hair fall down over her shoulder previous to her murder 
by Donzelli. Young fellows have never seen beauty like that^ 
heard such a voice, seen such hair, such eyes. Don't tell 7ne ! 
A man who has been about town since the reign of George IV., 
ought he not to know better than you young lads who have 
seen nothing ? The deterioration of women is lamentable ; and 
the conceit of the young fellows more lamentable still, that they 
won't see this fact, but persist in thinking their time as good as 
ours. 

Bless me ! when I was a lad, the stage was covered with 
angels, who sang, acted, and danced. When I remember the 
Adelphi, and the actresses there : when I think of Miss Ches- 
ter, and Miss Love, and Mrs. Serle at Sadler's Wells, and her 
forty glorious pupils — of the Opera and Noblet, and the ex- 
quisite young Taglioni, and Pauline Leroux, and a host more ! 
One much-admired being of those days I confess I never cared 
for, and that was the chief 7nale dancer — a ver)- important per- 
sonage then, with a bare neck, bare arms, a tunic, and a hat 
and feathers, who used to divide the applause with the ladies, 
and who has now sunk down a trap-door for ever. And this 
frank admission ought to show that I am not your mere twad- 
dling laudator temporis acti — your old fogey who can see no 
good except in his own time. 



62 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

They .^ay that claret is better nowadays, and cookery much 
improved since the days of 7ny monarch — of George IV. Pas 
try Cookery is ceriainly not so good. I have often eaten half-a- 
crown's worth (including, I trust, ginger-beer) at our school 
pastrycook's, and that is a proof that the pastry must have been 
very good, for could I do as much now ? I passed by the pas- 
trjxook's *=-hop lately, having occasion to visit my old school. 
It looked a very dingy old b&ker's ; misfortunes may have come 
over mm — those penny tarts certainly did not look so nice as I 
remeifiOer them : but he may have grown careless as he has 
grown old (I should judge nim to be now about ninety-six 
years ot age), and his hand may have lost its cunning. 

Not that we were not great epicures. I remember how we 
constantly grumbled at the quantity of the food in our master's 
house- -which on my conscience I believe was excellent and 
plentiful — and how we tried once or twice to eat him out of 
house and home. At the pastrycook's we may have over-eaten 
ourselves (I have admitted half-a-crown's worth for my own 
part, but I don't like to mention the rea/ figure for fear of per- 
verting the piesent generation of boys by my ov/n monstrous 
confession) — we may have eaten too much, I say. We did ; 
but what then ? The school apothecary was sent for : a couple 
of small globules at night, a trifling preparation of senna in the 
morning, and w^e naa not to go to school, so that the, draught 
was an actual pleasure. 

For our amusements, besides the games in vogue, which 
were pretty much in old times as they are now (except cricket, 
^ar exempic — and I wish tne present youth joy of their bowling, 
and suppose Armstrong ana Whitworth will bowl at them with 
light field-pieces next), theie were novels — ah ! I trouble you to 
find such novels in the preseni day ! O Scottish Chiefs, didn't 
we weep over you ! O Mysceries of Udolpho, didn't I and 
Briggs Minor draw^ pictures out of you, as I have said ? Efforts, 
feeble indeed, but still giving pleasure to us and our friends. 
" I say, old Boy, draw us VivJdi tortured in the Inquisition," 
or, ^^ Draw us Don Quixote and the windmills, you know," 
amateurs would say, to boys, who had love of drawing. " Pere- 
grine Pickle " we liked, our fathers admiring it, and telling us 
(the sly old boys) it was capital fun ; but I think I was rather 
bewildered by it, though '' Roderick Random " was and remains 
delightful. I don't remember having Sterne in the school 
library, no doubt because the works of that divine were not 
considered decent for young people. Ah ! not against thy 
genius, O fathei of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say a word 



DE yUVEXTUTE. 



^3 



in disrespect. But I am thankful to live in times when men no 
longer have the temptation to write so as to call blushes on 
women's cheeks, and would shame to whisper wicked allusions 




to honest boys. Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the 
kindly, the generous, the pure — the companion of what countless 
delightful hours ; and purveyor of how much happiness ; the 
friend whom we recall as the constant benefactor of our vouth \ 
Hov» well I remember the type and the brownish paper of the 



64 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

old duodecimo "Tales of My Landlord ! " I have never dared 
to read the ^'Pirate,'' and the "Bride of Lammermoor/' or 
^' Kenilworth," from that day to this, because the final is un- 
happy, and people die, and are murdered at the end. But 
" Ivanhoe," and " Quentin Durward ! '' Oh ! for a half-holiday, 
and a quiet corner, and one of those books again ! Those 
books, and perhaps those eyes with which we read them ; and, it 
may be, the brains behind the eyes ! It may be the tart was good ; 
but how fresh the appetite w^as ! If the gods would give me 
the desire of my heart, I should be able to write a story which 
boys would relish for the next few dozen^* of centuries. The 
boy-critic loves the story : grown up, he loves the author who 
wrote the story. Hence the kindly tie is established between 
writer and reader, and lasts pretty nearly for life. I meet 
people now who don't care for Walter Scott, or the " Arabian 
Nights." I am sorry for them, unless they in their time have 
found ///(?/r romancer — their charming Scherazade. By the way, 
Walter, when you are writing, tell me who is the favorite novelist 
in the fourth form now ? Have you got anything so good and 
kindly as dear Miss Edgeworth's Frank ? It used to belong to 
a fellow's sisters generally ; but though he pretended to despise 
it, and said, "Oh, stuff for girls!" he read it; and I think 
there were one or two passages which would try my eyes now, 
were I to meet with the little book. 

As for Thomas and Jeremiah (it is only my witty way of 
calling Tom and Jerry), I went to the British Museum the other 
day on purpose to get it ; but somehow, if you will press the 
question so closely, on reperusal, Tom and Jerry is not so 
brilliant as I had supposed it to be. The pictures are just as 
fine as ever ; and I shook hands with broad-backed Jerry Haw- 
thorn and Corinthian Tom with delieht, after manv vears' 
absence. But the style of the writing, I own, was not pleasing 
to me ; I even thought it a little vulgar — well ! well ! other 
writers have been considered vulgar — and as a description of 
the sports and amusements of London in the ancient times, 
more curious than amusing. 

But the pictures ! — oh ! the pictures are noble still ! First, 
there is Jerry arriving from the country, in a green coat and 
leather gaiters, and being measured for a fashionable suit at 
Corinthian House, by Corinthian Tom's tailor. Then away foi 
the career of pleasure and fashion. The park ! delicious ex^ 
citement ! The theatre ! the saloon 1 ! the green-room ! ! ! Rap- 
turous bliss — the opera itself ! and then perhaps to Temple 
Bar, to knock down a Charley there ! There are Jerry and 



DE JUVENTUTE. 65 

Tom, with their tights and little cocked hats, coming from the 
opera — very much as gentlemen in waiting on royalty are 
habited now. There they are at Almack's itself, amidst a 
crowd of high-bred personages, with the Duke of Clarence 
himself looking at them dancing: Now, strange change, they 
are in Tom Cribb's parlour, where they don't seem to be a 
whit less at home than in fashion's gilded halls : and now they 
are at Newgate, seeing the irons knocked off the malefactors^ 
legs previous to execution. What hardened ferocity in the 
countenance of the desperado in yellow breeches ! What com- 
punction in the face of the gentleman in black (who, I suppose, 
has been forging), and who clasps his hands, and listens to the 
chaplain ! Now we haste away to merrier scenes : to Tatter- 
sairs (ah gracious powers ! what a funny fellow that actor was 
who performed Dicky Green in that scene at the play !) ; and 
now we are at a private party, at which Corinthian Tom is 
waltzing (and very gracefully, too, as you must confers), wdth 
Corinthian Kate, whilst Bob Logic, the Oxonian, is playing on 
the piano ! 

'^ After," the text says, ''' the Oxonian had played several 
pieces of lively music, he requested as a favor that Kate and 
his friend Tom would perform a waltz. Kate without any hesi- 
tation immediately stood up. Tom offered his hand to his 
fascinating partner, and the dance took place. The plate 
conveys a correct representation of the ' gay scene ' at that 
precise moment. The anxiety of the Oxonian to witness the 
attitudes of the elegant pair had nearly put a stop to their 
movements. On turning round from the pianofore and pre- 
senting his comical niug^ Kate could scarcely suppress a 
laugh." 

And no wonder ; just look at it now (as I have copied it to 
the best of my humble ability), and compare Master Logic's 
countenance and attitude with the splendid elegance of Tom ! 
Now every London man is wear}- and blase. There is an en- 
enjoyment of life in these young bucks of 1823 which contrasts 
strangely with our feelings of i860. Here, for instance, is a 
specimen of their talk and walk. "^ If,' says Logic — ' if ejijoy- 
7nent is your motto, you may make the most of an evening at 
Vauxhall, more than at any other place in the metropolis. It 
is all free and easy. Stay as long as you like, and depart 
when you think proper.' — 'Your description is so flattering,' 
replied Jerry, ' that I do not care how soon the time arrives 
for us to start.' Logic proposed a ' bit of a stroir in order to 
get rid of an hour or two, which was immediately accepted b/ 



66 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

Tom and Jerry. A turji or two in Bond Street, a j^/r^?// through 
Piccadilly, a look in at Tattersall's, a. ramble through Pall 
Mall, and a st7'ut on the Corinthian path, fully occupied the 
time of our heroes until the hour for dinner arrived, when a 
few glasses of Tom's rich wines soon put them on the qui vive. 
Vauxhall w^as then the object in view% and the Trio started, 
bent upon enjoying the pleasures which this place so amplv 
affords." 

How nobly those inverted commas, those italics, those capi- 
tals, bring out the writer's wit and relieve the eye ! They are 
as good as jokes, though you mayn't quite perceive the point. 
Mark the varieties of lounge in which the young men indulge — 
now a stroll^ then a look in^ then a ramble, and presently a strut. 
When George, Prince of Wales, was twenty, I have read in an 
old Magazine, " the Prince's lounge " was a peculiar manner 
of w^alking which the young bucks imitated. At Windsor 
George III. had a cafs path — a sly early walk wdiich the good 
old king took in the gray morning before his household was 
astir. What was the Corinthian path here recorded t Does 
any antiquary know ? And what were the rich v^'ines which our 
friends took, and which enabled them to enjoy Vauxhall ? 
Vauxhall is gone, but the wines which could occasion such a 
delightful perversion of the intellect as to enable it to enjoy 
ample pleasures there, what were they? 

So the game of life proceeds, until Jerry Hawthorn, the 
rustic, is fairly knocked up by all this excitement and is forced 
to go home, and the last picture represents him getting into 
the coach at the *' White Horse Cellar," he being one of six 
inside ; whilst his friends shake him by the hand ; whilst the 
sailor mounts on the roof; whilst the Jews hang round with 
oranges, knives, and sealing-wax : whilst the guard is closing 
the door. Where are they now, those sealing-wax vendors ? 
where are the guards t where are the jolly teams ? where are 
the coaches ? and where the youth that climbed inside ancl out 
of them ; 'that heard the merry horn which sounds no more ; 
that saw the sun rise over Stonehenge 3 that rubbed away the 
bitter tears at night after parting as the coach sped on the 
journey to school and London ; that looked out with beating 
heart as the milestones flew by, for the welcome corner where 
began home and holidays ? 

It is night now : and here is home. Gathered under ih^ 
quiet roof elders and children lie alike at rest. In the midst 
of a great peace and calm, the stars look out from the heavens. 
The silence is peopled with the past ; sorrowful remorses for 



ON A JOKE I ONCE HEARD, 



67 



Sins and shortcomings— memories of passionate joys and griefs 
rise out of their graves, both now aUke cahn and sad. Eyes, 
as I shut mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. 
The town and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, 
wreathed in the autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses 
a light keeps watch here and there, in what may be a sick 
chamber or two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silent air. 
Here is night and rest. An awful sense of thanks makes the 
heart SAvelT, and the head bow, as I pass to my room through 
the sleeping house, and feel as though a hushed blessing w^ere 
upon it. 



ON A JOKE I ONCE HEARD FROM THE LATE 
THOMAS HOOD. 

H E good-natured reader 
who has perused some of 
these rambling papers has 
long since seen (if to see 
' has been worth his trou- 
ble) that the writer belongs 
to the old-fashioned classes 
of this world, loves to re- 
member very much more 
than to prophesy, and 
though he can't help being 
carried onward, and down- 
ward, perhaps, on the hill 
of life, the swift milestones 
marking their forties, fifties 
— how many tens or lustres 
shall we say .^ — he sits 
under Time, the white- 
wigged charioteer, with his 
back to the horses, and his face to the past, looking at the 
receding landscape and the hills fading into the gray distance. 
Ah me ! those gray, distant hills were green once, and here, and 
covered with smiling people ! As we came up the hill there 
was difficulty, and here and there a hard pull to be sure, but 
strength and spirits, and all sorts of cheery incident and com- 
panionship on the road; there were the tough struggles (>y 




68 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

heaven's merciful will) overcome the pauses, the faiiitings, the 
weakness, the lost way, perhaps, the bitter weather, the dreadful 
partings, the lonely night, the passionate grief — towards these 
I turn my thoughts, as I sit and think in my hobby-coach 
under Time, the silver-wigged charioteer. The young folks in 
the same carriage meanwhile are looking forwards. Nothing 
escapes their keen eyes — not a flower at the side of a cottage 
garden, nor a bunch of rosy-faced children at the gate : the 
landscape is all bright, the air brisk and jolly, the town yonder 
looks beautiful, and do you think they have learned to be diffi- 
cult about the dishes at the inn ? 

Now, suppose Paterfamilias on his journey with his wife and 
children in the sociable, and he passes an ordinary brick 
house on the road with an ordinary little garden, in the 
front, we will say, and quite an ordinary knocker to the door, 
and as many sashed windows as you please, quite common 
and square, and tiles, windovv^s, chimney-pots, quite like others; 
or suppose, in driving over such and such a common, he sees 
an ordinar}^ tree, and an ordinary donkey browsing under it, if 
you like — wife and daughter look at these objects without the 
slightest particle of curiosity or interest. What is a brass 
knocker to them but a lion's head, or what not ? and a thorn- 
tree with a pool beside it, but a pool in which a thorn and a 
jackass are reflected ? 

But you remember how once upon a time your heart used to 
beat, as you beat on that brass knocker, and whose eyes looked 
from the window above. You remember how by that thorn-tree 
and pool, where the geese w^ere performing a prodigious evening 
concert, there might be seen, at a certain hour, somebody in a 
certain cloak and bonnet, who happened to be coming from 
a village yonder, and whose image has flickered in. that pool. 
In that pool, near the thorn ? Yes, in that goose-pool, never 
mind how long ago, when there were reflected the images of the 
geese — and two geese more. Here, at least, an oldster may 
have the advantage of his young fellow-travellers, and so 
Putney Heath or the New Road may be invested with a halo 
of brightness invisible to them, because it only beams out of 
his own soul. 

I have been reading the " Memorials of Hood " by his chil- 
dren, "^ and wonder whether the book will have the same interest 
for others and for younger people, as for persons of my ov/n age 
and calling. Books of travel to any country become interesting 
to us who have been there. Men revisit the old school though 

* MetHvriah of Thoinas Hood. Moxon, i860. J voU. 



0,\ A JOKE / 0.\CR HEARD. 69 

hateful to them, with ever so much kindliness and sentimental 
affection. There was the tree under which the bully licked 
you; here the ground where you had to fag out on holidays, 
and so forth. In a word, my dear sir, You are the most inter- 
esting subject to yourself, of any that can occupy your worship's 
thoughts. I have no doubt, a Crimean soldier, reading a his- 
tory of that siege, and how Jones and the gallant 99th were 
ordered to charge or what not, thinks, " Ah, yes, we of the 
1 00th were pkiced so and so, I perfectly rememlDer.*' So with 
this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater 
interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, 
in a different part of the field, and engaged a young subaltern, 
in tht Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still and cov- 
ered with glor}'. '*The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, 
his heights of Abraham — sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the 
full blaze and fame of that great victory. 

What manner of man was the genius who penned that 
famous song ? What like was Wolfe, who climbed and con- 
quered on those famous heights of Abraham ? We all want to 
know details regarding men who have achieved famous feats, 
whether of war, or wit, or eloquence, or endurance, or knowl- 
edge. His one or two happy and heroic actions take a man's 
name and memory out of the crowd of names and memories. 
Henceforth he stands eminent. We scan him : we want to 
know all about him ; we walk around and examine him, are 
curious, perhaps, and think are we not as strong and tall and 
capable as yonder champion ; were we not bred as well, and 
could we not endure the winter's cold as v;ell as he t Or we 
look up v/ith all our eyes of admiration ; will find no fault in 
our hero : declare his beauty a,nd proportions perfect ; his 
critics envious detractors, and so forth. Yesterday, before he 
performed bis feat, he was ncbody. Who cared about his 
birth-place, his parentage, or the color of his hair? To-day, 
by some single achievement, or by a series of great actions to 
which his genius accustoms us, he is famous, and antiquarians 
are busy finding out under what schoolmaster's ferule he was 
educated, where his grandmother was vaccinated, and so forth. 
If half-a-dozen washing-bills of Goldsmith's were to be found 
to-morrow, would they not inspire a general interest, and be 
printed \c. a hundred papers? I lighted upon Oliver, not very 
long since, in an old Town and Country Magazine, at the 
Pantheon masquerade '' in an old English habit.'' Straightway 
my imagination ran out to meet him, to look at him, to follow 
him about, I forgot the names of scores of fine gentlemen ^f 



70 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



the past age, who were mentioned besides. We want ta ^ee 
this man who has amused and charmed us ; who has been our 
friend, and given us hours of pleasant companionship and 
kindly thought. I protest when I ca«ie, in the midst of those 
names of people of Fashion, and beaux, and demireps, upon 
those names " Sir J, R-yn-Ids^ i7i a do??iino ; Af?\ O'-d-ck and 
Dr. G-Ids?n-th, in two old English dresses ^^^ I had, so to speak, 
my heart in my mouth. What, you here, my dear Sir Joshua ? 
Ah, what an honor and privilege it is to see youj This is Mr. 
Goldsmith? And very much, sir, the ruff and the slashed 
doublet become you ! O doctor ! what a pleasure I had and 
have in reading the Animated Nature. How did you learn the 
secret of writing the decasyllabic line, and whence that sweet 
wailing note of tenderness that accompanies your song ? Was 
Beau Tibbs a real man, and will you do me the honor of allow- 
ing me to sit at )-our table at supper ? Don't you think you 
know how he would have talked t Would you. not have liked 
to hear him prattle over the champagne ? 

Now, Hood is passed away — -passed off the earth as much 
as Goldsmith or Horace. The times in which he lived, and in 
which very many of us lived and were young, are changing or 
changed. I saw Hood one as a young nian, at a dinner which 
seems almost as ghostly now as that masquerade at the Pan- 
theon (1772), of which we w^ere speaking anon. It was at a 
dinner of the Literary Fund, in that vast apartment which is 
hung round with the portraits of very large Royal Freemasons, 
now unsubstantial ghosts. There at the end of the room was 
Hood. Some publishers, I think, were our companions. I 
quite remember his pale face ; he w^as thin and deaf, and very 
silent ; he scarcely opened his lips during the dinner, and he 
made one pun. Some gentleman missed his snuff-box, and 
Hood said, ^ '^ ^ '^ ^ (the Freemasons' Tavern was kept, you 
must remember, by Mr. Cuff in those days, not by its present 
proprietors). Well, the box being lost, and asked for, and Cuff 
(remember that name) being the name of the landlord. Hood 
opened his silent jaws and said ^ ^ ^ Shall I tell you what 
he said ? It was not a very good pun, which the great punster 
then made. Choose your favorite pun of ^' Whims and Od- 
dities,'' and fancy that was the joke which he contributed to 
the hilarity of our little table. 

Where those asterisks are drawn on the page, you must 
know, a pause occurred, during which I was engaged with 
" Hood's Own," having been referred to the book by this life 
of the author which I have just been reading. I am not going 



Oy A JOKE I OXCE HEARD. yt 

to dissert on Hood's humor ; I am not a fair judge. Ha^ e I 
not said elsewhere that there are one or two wonderfully old 
gentlemen still alive who used to give me tips when I was a 
boy ? I can't be a fair critic about them. L always think of 
that sovereign, that rapture of raspberry-tarts, which made my 
young days happy. Those old sovereign-contributors may tell 
stories ever so old, and I shall laugh ; they may commit mur- 
der, and I shall believe it was justifiable homicide. There is 
my friend Baggs, who goes about abusing me, and of course 
cur dear mutual friends tell me. Abuse away, mon bon I You 
were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that you may 
take the change out of that gold now, and say I am a cannibal 
and negro, if you w^ll. Ha, Baggs ! Dost thou wdnce as thou 
readest this line 1 Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy 
breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated t Puff out thy 
wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to 
me as the Baggs of old — the generous, the gentle, the friendly. 
No, on second thoughts, I am determined I w'ill not repeat 
that joke which I heard Hood make. He says he wrote these 
jokes with such ease that he sent manuscripts to the publishers 
faster than they €ould acknowledge the receipt thereof. I 
won't say that they were all good jokes, or that to read a great 
book full of them is a work at present altogether jocular. 
Writing to a friend respecting some memoir of him which had 
been published. Hood says, ''' You will judge how^ well the 
author knows me, when he says my mind is rather serious than 
comic.'' At the time w^hen he wrote these w^ords, he evidently 
undervalued his own serious power, and thought that in pun- 
ning and broad-grinning lay his chief strength. Is not there 
something touching in that simplicity and humility of faith ? 
"To make laugh is. my calling," says he; ''I must jump, 
I must grin, I must tumble, I must turn langLiage head over 
heels, and leap through granimar;" and he goes to his w^ork 
humbly and courageously, and what he has to do that 
does he with all his might, through sickness, through sorrow, 
through exile, poverty, fever, depression — there he is, always 
ready to his work, and with a jewel of genius in his pocket ! 
Why, when he laid down his puns and pranks, put the motley 
off, and spoke out of his heart, all England antl America 
listened with tears and wonder ! Other men have delusions of 
conceit, and fancy themselves greater than they are, and that 
the w^orld slights them. Have we not heard how Liston always 
thought he ought to play Hamlet } Here is a man with a 
po^ver to touch the heart almost unequalled, and he passes 



^' 



ROUNDABOUI' PAPERS. 



days and years in writing, '' Young Ben he was a nice young 
man," and so forth. To say truth, I have been reading \\\ a 
book of ''Hood's Own ^' until I am perfectly angry. '*You 
great man, you good man, you true genius and poet," I cry 
out, as I turn page after page. "" Do, do make no more of 
these jokes, but be yourself, and take your station.'' 

When Hood w^as on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel, who 
only knew of his illness, not of his imminent danger, wrote to 
him a noble and touching letter, announcing that a pension 
was conferred on him : 

*' I am inore than repaid," writes Peei, ''by the personal satisfaction which I have had 
in doing that for which you return me warm and characteristic acknowledgments. 

" You perhaps think that you are known to one with such multifarious occupations a? 
myself, merely by general reputation as an author ; but I assure you that there can be 
little, which you have written ard acknowledged, which I have not read ; and that there 
are few who can appreciate and admire more than myself, the good sense and good feeling 
which have taught you to infuse - so m.uch fun and merriment into writings correcting folly 
and exposing Fibsurdities, and yet never trespassing beyond those limits within which wit 
and facetiousness are not very often confined. You may write on with the consciousness of 
independence, as free and unfettered, as if no communication had ever passed between us. 
I am not conferring a private obligation upon 5^ou, but am fulfiHing the intentions of the 
legislature, which has placed at the disposal of the Crown a certain sum (miserable, indeed, 
in amount) to be applied to th.e recognition of public claims on the bounty of the Crown. ^ It 
you will review the names of those whose claims have been admitted on account of their lite- 
rary or scientific eminence, you will find an ample confirmation of the tiuth of my statenu r.t. 

" One return, indeed, I shall ask of you— that you will give me the opportunity < i 
making your personal acquaintance." 

And Hood, writing to a friend, enclosing a copy of Peel's 
letter, says, ''Sir R. Peel came from Burleigh on Tuesday 
night, and w-ent down to Brighton on Saturday. If he had 
wTitten by post, I should not have had it till to-day. So he 
sent his servant with the enclosed on Saturday night; another 
mark' of considerate attention." He is frightfully unwell, he 
continues : his wife says he looks quite green ; but ill as he is,' 
poor fellow, ^' his well is not dry. He has pumped out a sheet 
of Chistmas fun, is drawing some cuts, and shall Avrite a sheet 
more of liis novel." 

Oh, sad, marvellous picture of courage, of honesty, of patient 
endurance, of duty struggling against pain ! How noble Peel's 
figure is standing" by that sick bed! how generous his w^ords, 
how dignified and sincere his compassion ! And the poor 
dying man, with a heart full of natural gratitude towards his 
noble benefactor, must turn to him and say— ^* If it be well to 
be remembered by a Minister, it is better still not to be for- 
gotten by him in a *hurly Burleigh ! ' '' Can you laugh ? Is 
not the joke horribly pathetic from the poor dying lips 1 As 
dying Robin Hood must fire a last shot with his bow — as one 
reads of Catholics on their death-beds putting on a Capuchin 
dress to go out of the world — here is poor Hood at his last 
r^.;.]- putting on his ghastly motley, and uttering one joke more, 



ON- A JOKE I ONCE HEARD. 73 

He dies, however, in clearest love and peace with his chil- 
dren, wife, friends ; to the former especially his whole life had 
been devoted, and every day showed his fidelity, simplicity, 
and affection. In going through the record of his most pure, 
modest, honorable life, and living along with him, you come to 
trust him thoroudilv, and feel that here is a most loval, affec- 
tionate, and upright soul, with whom you have been brought 
into communion. Can we say as much of the lives of all men 
of letters .'* Here is one at least w-ithout guile, vvitliout preten- 
sion, without scheming, of a pure life, to his family and little 
modest circle of friends tenderly devoted. 

And what a hard work, and vrhat a slender reward ! In the 
little domestic details with which the book abounds, what a 
simple life is shown to us ! The most simple little pleasures and 
amusenients delight and occupy him.'*' You have revels on 
shrimps ; the good vx'ife making the pie ; details about the 
inaid,* and criticisms on her conduct ; w^onderful tricks played 
with the plum-pudding — all the pleasures centring round the 
little humble home. One of the first men of his time, he is 
appointed editor of a Magazine at a salary of 300/. per annum, 
signs himself exultingly '' Ed. N. M. M.," and the family rejoice 
over the income as over a fortune. He goes to a Greenwich 
dinner — what a feast and a rejoicing afterwards ! — 

"Well, we drank 'the Boz ' with a delectable clatter, which drew from him a good 
warm-hearted speech. ♦ * * He looked very well, and had a younger brother along 
with him. *= * * Then we had songs. Barham clianted a Robin Hood ballad, and 

Cruikshank san?; a burlesque ballad of Lord H ; and somebody, unknown to me, gave 

a capital imitation of a French showman. Then we toasted Mrs. Boz, and the Chairman, 
and Vice, and the Traditional Priest sang the * Deep deep sea,' in his deep deep voice ; and 
then we drank to Proctor, who wrote the said song ; also Sir J. W'ilson's good health, and 
Cruikshank's, and Ainsv/orth's : and a ]Manchester friend of the latter sang a Manchester 
ditty, so full of trading stufiF, that it really seemed to have been not composed but manu' 
factured. Jerdan, as Jerdanish as usual on such occasions — you know how paradoxically he 
is quite at home in di7ii)ig out. As to myself, I had to make' my second Jhaideti speech^ foi 
Mr. Monckton Milnes proposed my health in terms mymodesty'might allow me to repeat to 
you^ but my memory won't. However, I ascribed the toast to mv notoriously bad health, 
and assured them that their wishes had already improved it— that I'felt a brisker circulation 
—a more genial v/armth about the heart, and explained that a.certain trembling of my hand 
was not from palsy, or my eld a^rue, but an inclination in mv hand to shake itself with every 
one present. W^hereupon I had to go through the friendlv ceremony v.-ith as manv of the 
company as were within reach, besides a few more who cam'e express from the other end of 
the table. F^-ry gratifying, wasn't it? Though I cannot go quite so far as Tane, who 
wants me to have that hard chopped off, bottled, and preserved in spirits. She was sitting 
up for me, very anxiously, as usual when I go out, because I am so domestic and steady, and 
was down at the door before I could ring at the gate, to which Boz kindiv sent me in his own 
carnage. Poor girl ! what ivoidd s\\^ do if she had a wild husband instead of a tame one ? " 

And the poor anxious wife is sitting up, and fondles the 
hand which has been shaken by so many illustrious men ! The 
little feast dates back only eighteen years, and yet somehow it 
seems as distant as a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, or a meeting at 

wiir*. 



74 



kOUiVDABOUT PAPERS. 



Poor little gleam of sunshine ! very little good cheer enlivens 
that sad simple life. We have the triumph of the Magazine : 
then a new Magazine projected and produced : then illness and 
the last scene, and the kind Peel by the dying man's bedside 
speaking noble words of respect and sympathy, and soothing 
the last throbs of the tender honest heart. 

I like, I say. Hood's life even better than his books, and I 
wish, with all my heart, Mojisieur et che7' cofifr'ere^ the same could 
be said for both of us, when the inkstream of our life hath 
ceased to run. Yes : if I drop first, dear Baggs, I trust you 
may find reason to modify some of the unfavorable views of my 
character, which you are freely imparting to our mutual friends. 
What ought to be the literary man's point of honor nowadays '^. 
Suppose, friendly reader, you are one of the craft, what legacy 
would you like to leave to your children ? First of all (and by 
heaven's gracious help) you would pray and strive to give them 
such an endowment of love, as should last certainly for al! their 
lives, and perhaps be transmitted to their children. You would 
(by the same aid and blessing) keep your honor pure, and trans- 
mit a name unstained to those who have a right to bear it. 
You would, though this faculty of giving is one or the easiest of 
the literary man's qualities — you would, out of your earnings, 
small or great, be able to help a poor brother in need, to dress 
his wounds, and, if it v/ere but twopence, to give him succor. 
Is the money which the noble Macaulaygave to the poor lost to 
his family ? God forbid. To the loving hearts of his kindred 
is it not rather the most precious part of their inheritance ? It 
was invested in love and righteous doing, and it bears interest 
in heaven. You will, if letters be your vocation, find saving 
harder than giving and spending. To save be your endeavor, 
too, against the night's coming when no man can work ; when 
the arm is weary with the long day's labor ; when the brain 
perhaps grows dark ; when the old, who can labor no more, want 
warmth and rest, and the young ones call for supper. 



I copied the little galley-slave who is made fo figure in the 
initial letter of this paper, from a quaint old silver spoon which 
we purchased in a curiosity-shop at the Hague. It 4s one of 
the gift spoons so common in Holland, and which have multi- 
plied so astonishingly of late years at our dealers' in old silver- 
ware. Along the stem of the spoon are written the words : 
** Anno 1609, Bin ick aldus ghekkdt gheghaen'' — " In the year 



ON A JOKE / ONCE HEARD. y^j 

i6q9 I went thus clad." The good Dutchman was released 
from his Algerine captivity (I imagine his figure looks like that 
of a slave amongst the Moors), and in his thank-offering to 
some godchild at home, 4ie thus piously records his escape. 

Was not poor Cervantes also a captive amongst the Moors ? 
Did not Fielding, and Goldsmith, and Smollett, too, die at the 
chain as well as poor Hood ? Think of Tielding going on 
board his wretched ship in the Thames, with scarce a hand to 
bid him farewell ; of brave 1 obias Smollett, and his life, how 
hard, and hov/ poorly rewarded ; of Goldsmith, and the physi- 
cian whispering, " Have you something on your mind ? " and 
the wild dying eyes answering, ''Yes."' Notice how Boswell 
speaks of Goldsmith, and the splendid contempt with which he 
regards him. Read Hawkins on Fielding, and the scorn with 
which Dandy Walpole and Bishop Hurd speak of him. Galley- 
slaves doomed to tug the oar and wear the chain, whilst my 
lords and dandies take their pleasure, and hear fine music and 
disport with fine ladies in the cabin ! 

But stay. Was there any cause for this scorn 1 Had some 
of these great men weaknesses which gave inferiors advantage 
over them t Men of letters cannot lay their hands on their 
hearts, and say, *^ No, the fault was fortune's, and the indiffer- 
ent world's not Goldsmith's nor Fielding's.'' There was no 
reason why Oliver should always be thriftless ; why Fielding 
and Steele should sponge upon their friends ; why Sterne should 
make love to his neighbors' wives. Swift, for a long time, was 
as poor as any wag that ever laughed : but he owed no penny 
to his neighbors : Addison, when he wore his most threadbare 
coat, could hold his head up, and maintain his dignity : and, I 
dare vouch, neither of those gentlemen, when they were ever so 
pod^ asked any man alive to pity their condition, and have a 
regard to the weaknesses incidental to the literary profession. 
Galley-slave, forsooth ! If you are sent to prison for some 
error for which the law awards that sort of laborious seclusion, 
so much the more shame for you. If you are chained to the 
oar as a prisoner of war, like Cervantes, you have the pain, but 
not the shame, and the friendly compassion of mankind to re- 
ward you. Galley-slaves, indeed ! What man has not his oar 
to pull ? There is that wonderful old stroke-oar in the Queen's 
galley. How many years has he pulled ? Day and night, in 
rough water or smooth, with what invincible vigor and surpris- 
ing gayety he plies his arms. There is the same Gafere Capi- 
laine, that well-known, trim figure, the bow-oar ; how he tugs, 
and with what a will ! How both of them have been abused in 



y 6 RO UN-DA B O UT PA FERS, 

their time ! Take the Lawyer's galley, and that dauntless 
octogenarian in command ; when has he ever complained or re- 
pined about his slavery ? There is the Priest's galley — black 
and lawn sails — do any mariners out of Thames work harder ? 
When lawyer, and statesman, and divine, and writer are snug 
in bed, there is a ring at the poor Doctor's bell. Forth he 
must go, in rheumatism or snow; a galley-slave bearing his 
galley-pots to quench the flames of fever, to succor mothers and 
young children in their hour of peril, and, as gently and sooth- 
ingly as may be, to carry the hopeless patient over to the silent 
shore. And have we not just read of the actions of the Queen's 
galleys and their brave crews in the Chinese waters ? Men not 
more worthy of human renown and honor to-day in their victory, 
than last year in their glorious hour of disaster. So with stout 
hearts may we ply the oar, messmates all, till the voyage is over, 
and the Harbor of Rest is found. 



ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE, 

The kindly Christmas tree, from which I trust every gentle 
reader has pulled a bonbon or two, is yet ail aflame whilst I 
am writing, and sparkles with the sweet fruits of its season. 
You young ladies, may you have plucked pretty giftlings from 
it ; and out of the cracker sugar-plum which you have split 
with the captain or the sweet young curate may you have read 
one of those delicious conundrums which the confectioners 
introduce into the sweetmeats, and which apply to the cunnings 
passion of love. Those riddles are to be read at your age, when 
I dare say they are amusing. As for Dolly, Merry, and Bell, 
who are standing at the tree, they don't care about the love- 
riddle part, but understand the sweet-almond portion very well. 
They are four, five, six years old. Patience, little people ! A 
dozen merry Christmiases more, and you will be reading those 
wonderful love-conundrumxS, too. As for us elderly folks, we 
watch the babies at their sport, and the young people pulling 
at the branches : and instead of finding bonbons or sweeties 
in the packets which lue pluck off the boughs, we find enclosed 
Mr. Carnifex's review of the quarter's meat : Mr. Sartor's com- 
pliments, and little statement for self and the young gentlemen ; 
and Madame de Sainte-Crinoline's respects to the young ladies, 



ROUND About the Christmas tree. 7^ 

who encloses her account, and will send on Saturday, please ; 
or we stretch our hand out to the educational branch of the 
Christmas tree, and there find a lively and amusing article from 
the Rev. Henry Holyshade, containing our dear Tommy's ex- 
ceedingly moderate account for the last term's school ex- 
penses. 

The ^ree yet sparkles, 1 say. 1 am writing on the day 
before Twelfth Day, if you must know ; but already ever so 
many of the fruits have been pulled, and the Chrism as lights 
have gone out. Bobby Miseltow, who has been staying with 
us for a week (and who has been sleeping mysteriously in the 
bath-room), comes to say he is going away to spend the rest of 
the holidays with his grandmother — and I brush away the manly 
tear of regret as I part with the dear child. '' Well, Bob, 
good-by, since you will go. Compliments to grandmamma. 

Thank her for the turkey. Here's " {A slight pecuniary 

tramaction fakes place at this Juncture, and Bob nods and winks ^ 
and puts his hand in his waistcoat pocket^ *' Vou have had a 
pleasant week t^' 

Bob. — ** Haven't II" {^And exit, anxious to know the amount 
of the coin which has just changed hcmds,) 

He is gone, and as the dear boy vanishes through the door 
(behind which I see him perfectly), I too cast up a little account 
of our past Christmas week. When Bob's holidays are over, 
and the printer has sent me back this manuscript, I know 
Christmas will be an old story. All the fruit will be off the 
Christmas tree then \ the crackers will have cracked off ; the 
almonds will have been crunched ; and the sweet-bitter riddles 
will have been read ; the lights will have perislied oft' the dark 
green boughs ; the toys growing on them will have been dis- 
tributed, fought for, cherished, neglected, broken. Ferdinand 
and Fidelia will each keep out of it (be still, my gushing heart !) 
the remembrance of a riddle read together, of a double-almond 
munched together, and the moiety of an exploded cracker * =^' * 
The maids, I sav, will have taken down all that hollv stuff' and 
nonsense about the clocks, lamps, and looking-glasses, the 
dear boys will be back at school, fondly thinking of the pan- 
tomime-fairies whom they have seen ; whose gaudy gossamer 
wings are battered by this time ; and whose pink cotton (or 
silk is it ?) lower extremities are all din^v and dustv. Yet but 
a few days, Bob, and flakes of paint will have cracked on the 
fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving temples of adamantine 
lustre will be as shabby. as the city of Pekin. \A'hen you read 
this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue out of his 



78 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



mouth, and saying, '' How are you to-morrow ? " To-morrow, 
indeed ! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that cheek 
is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the absurd 
question. To-morrow, indeed ! To-morrow thediffugient snows 
will give place to Spring ; the snow-drops will lift their heads ; 
Ladyday may be expected, and the pecuniary duties peculiar 
to that feast ; in place of bonbons, trees will have an eruption 
of light green knobs ; the whitebait season will bloom '^ ^ ^ 
as if one nefed go on describing these vernal phenomena, when 
Christmas is still here, though ending, and the subject of my 
discourse ! 

We have all admired the illustrated papers, and noted 
how boisterously jolly they become at Christmas time. What 
wassail-bowls, robin-redbreasts, waits, snow landscapes, bursts 
of Christmas song ! And then to think that these festivities are 
prepared months before — that these Christmas pieces are pro- 
phetic ! How kind of artists and poets to devise the festivities 
beforehand, and" serve them pat at the proper time ! ^^'e ought 
to be grateful to them, as to the cook who gets up at midnight 
and sets the pudding a boiling, which is to feast us at six 
o'clock. I often think with gratitude of the famous Mr. Nelson 
Lee — the author of I don't know how many hundred glorious 
pantomimes — walking by the summer wave at ^Margate, -or 
Brighton perhaps, revolving in his mind the idea of some new 
gorgeous spectacle of faer\', which the winter shall see com- 
plete. He is like cook at midnight {siparva licet). He watches 
and thinks. He pounds the sparkling sugar of benevolence, 
the plums of fancy, the sweetmeats of fun, the figs of — well, 
the figs of fairy fiction, let us. say, and pops the whole in the 
seething cauldron of -imagination, and at due season sen'es up 
THE Pantomime. 

Very few men in the course of nature can expect to see all 
the pantomimes in one season, but I hope to the end of my 
life I shall never forego reading about them in that delicious 
sheet of The Times which appears on the morning after Boxing- 
day. Perhaps reading is even better than seeing. The best 
way, I think, is to say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the 
paper for two hours, reading all the way down from Drury 
Lane to the Britannia at Hoxton. Bob and I went to two 
pantomimes. One was at the Theatre of Fancy, and the other 
at the Fairy Opera, and I don't know which we liked the 
best.. 

At the Fancy, we saw "Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's 
Ghost and Nunky's Pison," which is all very well — but, gentle- 



ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE. 



79 



men, if you don't respect Shakspeare, to whom will you be 
civil ? The palace and ramparts of Eisinore by moon and 
snowlight is one of Loutherbourg's finest efforts. The ban- 
queting hall of the palace is illuminated : the peaks and gables 
flitter with the snow : the sentinels march blowing their fingers 
^uth the cold — the freezing of the nose of one of them is very 
neatly and dexterously arranged : the snow-storm rises : the 
winds howl awfully along the battlements : the waves come 
curling, leaping, foaming to shore. Hamlet's umbrella is 
whirled away in the storm. He and his two friends stamp on 
each other's toes to keep them warm. The storm-spirits rise 
in the air, and are whirled howling round the palace and the 
rocks. My eyes ! what tiles and chimney-pots fly hurtling 
through the air ! As the storm reaches its height (here the 
wind instruments come in with prodigious effect, and I compli- 
ment Mr. Brumby and the violoncellos) — as the snow-storm 
rises, (queek, queek, queek, go the fiddles, and then thrumpty 
thrump comes a pizzicato movement in Bob Major, which sends 
a shiver into your very boot-soles,) the thunder-clouds deepen 
(bong, bong, bong, from the violoncellos). The forked light- 
ning quivers through the clouds in a zig-zag scream of violins 
— and look, look, look ! as the frothing, roaring waves come 
rushing up the battlements, and over the reeling parapet, each 
hissing wave becomes a ghost, sends the gun-carriages rolling 
over the platform, and plunges howling into the water again. 

Hamlet's mother comes on to the battlements to look for 
her son. The storm whips her umbrella out of her hands, and 
she retires screaming in pattens. 

The cabs on the stand in the great market-place at Eisinore 
are seen to drive off, and several people are drowned. The 
gas-lamps along the street are wrenched from their foundations, 
and shoot through the troubled air. Whist, rush, hish ! how 
the rain roars and pours ! The darkness becomes awful, always 
deepened by the power of the music — and see — in the midst 
of a rush, and whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave — 
what is that ghastly figure moving hither ? It becomes bigger, 
bigger, as it advances down the platform — more ghastly, more 
horrible, enormous ! It is as tall as the whole stage. It seems 
to be advancing on the stalls and pit, and the whole house 
screams with terror, as the Ghost of the late Hamlet comes 
in, and begins to speak. Several people faint, and the light- 
fingered gentry pick pockets furiously in the darkness. 

In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes 
about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the 



go ' ROUNJDABOUT PAPERS. 

wind-instruments bugling the most liorrible wails, the boldest 
spectator must have felt frightened. But hark ! w^hat is that 
silver shimmer of the fiddles ! Is it — can it be — the gray dawn 
jieeping in the stormy east ? The ghost's eyes look blankly 
lovv'ards it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker ply the 
violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow^ the orient 
clouds. Cockadoodledoo ! crows that great cock which iids 
just come out on the roof of the palace. And now the round 
sun himself pops up from behind the wa\'es of night. Where 
is the ghost ? He is gone ! Purple shadows of morn '' slant 
o'er tl>e snowy sward," the city wakes up in life and sunshine, 
and we confess w-e are very much relieved at the disappearance 
of the ghost. We don't like those dark scenes in pantomimes. 

After the usual business, that Ophelia should be turned into 
Columbine was to be expected ; but I confess I was a little 
shocked w^hen Hamlet's mother became Pantaloon, and w^as 
instantly knocked down by Clown Claudius. Grimaldi is getting 
a little old now, but for real humor there are few clowns like 
him. Mr. Shuter, as the gravedigger, was chaste and comic, 
as he always is, and the scene-painters surpassed themselves. 

*^ Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings," at the 
other house, is very pleasant too. The irascible William is 
acted with great vigor by Snoxall, and the battle of Hastings is 
a good piece of burlesque. Some trifling liberties are taken 
with history, but W'hat liberties wdll not the meriy genius of 
pantomime permit himself .^ At the battle of Plastings, William 
is on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volunteers, very 
' elegantly led by the always pretty Miss W^addy (as Haco Sharp- 
shooter), when a shot from the Normans kills Harold. The 
fairy Edith hereupon cqjnes forward, and finds his body, vrhich 
straightway leaps up a live harlequin, whilst the Conqueror 
makes an excellent clown, and the Archbishop of Bayeux, a 
diverting pantaloon, &c., &:c., &:c. 

Perhaps these are not the pantomimes we really saw ; but 
one description will do as well as another. The plots, you see. 
are a little intricate and difficult to understand in pantomimes : 
and I may have mixed up one with another. That I was at the 
theatre on Boxing-night is certain— but the pit was so full that 
J could only see fairy legs glittering in the distance, as I stood 
at the door. And if I was badly off, I think there was a young 
gentleman behind me worse* off still. I own that he has good 
reason (though others have not) to speak ill of me behind my 
back, and hereby beg his pardon. 

Likewise to the gentleman who picked up a party in Picca- 



KOUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE. Sf 

dilly, who had slipped and fallen in the snow, and was there o\\ 
his back, uttering energetic expressions ; that party begs to 
oiier thanks, and compliments of the season. 

Bob's behavior on New Year's day, I can assure Dr. Holy- 
shade, was highly creditable to the boy. He had expressed a 
determination to partake of every dish, w^iich was put on the 
table; but after soup, iish, roast-beef, and roast-goose, he re- 
tired from active business until the pudding and mince pie made 
their appearance, of which he partook liberally, but not too 
freely. And he greatly advanced in my good opinion by praising 
the punch, which was of my own manufacture, and which some 
gentlemen present (Mr. O'M — g — n, amongst others) pronounced 
to be too weak. Too weak ! A bottle of rum," a bottle of 
Madeira, half a bottle of brandy, and tw^o bottles and a half of 
water — ca?i this mixture be said to be too weak for any mortal ? 
Our young friend amused the company during the evening, by 
exhibiting a two-shilling magic-lantern, which he had purchased 
and likewise by singing '^ Sally, come up ! " a quaint, hut rather 
monotonous melody, which I am told is sung by the pc^or negro 
on the banks of the broad Mississippi. 

What other enjoyments did we proffer for the child's amuse^ 
ment during the Christmas week 1 A great philosopher was 
giving a lecture to young folks at the British Institution. But 
when this diversion was proposed to our young friend Bob, he 
said, *' Lecture .^ No, thank you. Not as I knows on," and 
made sarcastic signals on his nose. Perhaps he is of Dr. ^ohn- 
son's opinion about lectures : *' Lectures, sir ! what ma^^ would 
go to hear that imperfectly at a lecture, which he can read at 
leisure in a book ? " / never went, of my own choice, to a 
lecture ; that I can vow. As for sermons, they are different ; 
I delight in them, and they cannot, of course, be too long. 

Well, we partook of yet other Christmas delights besides 
pantomime, pudding, and pie. One glorious, one delightful, 
one most unlucky and pleasant day, we drove in a brougham, 
with a famous horse, which carried us more quickly and briskly 
than any of your vulgar raihvays, over Battersea Bridge, on 
which the horse's hoofs rung as if it had been iron ; through 
suburban villages, plum-caked with snow ; under a leaden sky, 
in wdiich the sun hung like a red-hot warming-pan ; by pond 
after pond, where not only men and boys, but scores after scores 
of women and girls, v/ere sliding, and roaring, and clapping 
their lean old sides with laughter, as they tumbled down, and 
their hob-nailed shoes flew^ up in the air ; the air frosty with a 
lilac haze, through which villas, and commons, and churches, and 

6 



s 



82 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

plantations glimmered. We drive up the hill, Bob and I ; we 
make the last two miles in eleven minutes ; we pass that poor, 
armless man who sits there in the cold, following you with his 
eyes. I don't give anything^ and Bob looks disappointed. We 
are set down neatly at the gate, and a horse-holder opens the 
brougham door. I don't give anything ; again disappointment 
on Bob's part. I pay a shilling apiece, and we enter into the 
glorious building, which is decorated for Christmas, and straight- 
way forgetfulness on Bob's part of everything but that magnifi- 
cent scene. The enormous edifice is all decorated for Bob and 
Christmas. The stalls, the columns, the fountains, courts, 
statues, splendors, are all crow^ned for Christmas. The deli- 
cious negro is singing his Alabama choruses for Christmas and 
Bob. He has scarcely done, when, Tootarootatoo ! Mr. Punch 
is performing his surprising actions, and hanging the beadle. 
The stalls are decorated. The refreshment-tables are piled 
with good things ; at many fountains " Mulled Claret " is 
written up in appetizing capitals. "' Mulled Claret — oh, jolly ! 
How cold it is!" says Bob; I pass on. "It's only three 
o'clock," says Bob. "No, only three," I say, meekly. "We 
dine at seven," sighs Bob, " and it's so-o-o coo-old." I still 
would take no hints. No claret, no refreshment, no sandwiches, 
no sausage-rolls for Bob. At last I am obliged to tell him all. 
Just before we left home, a little Christmas bill popped in at 
the door and emptied my purse at the threshold. I forgot all 
about the transaction, and had to borrow half a crown from 
John Coachman to pay for our entrance into the palace of de- 
light. Now you see, Bob, why I could not treat you on that 
second of January when we "drove to the palace together; when 
the girls and boys were sliding on the ponds at Dulwdch ; when 
the darkling river was full of floating ice, and the sun was like 
a warming-pan in the leaden sky. 

One more Christmas sight we had, of course ; and that sight 
I think I like as well as Bob himself at Christmas, and at all 
seasons. We went to a certain garden of delight, where, what- 
ever your cares are, I think you can manage to forget some of 
them, and muse, and be not unhappy ; to a garden beginning 
with a Z, which is as lively as Noah's ark ; where the fox has 
brought his brush, and the cock has brought his comb, and the 
elephant has brought his trunk, and the kangaroo has brought 
his bag, and the condor his old white wig and black satin hood. 
On this day it was so cold that the white bears winked their 
pink eyes, as they plapped up and dowm by their pool, and 
seemed to sav, "Aha, this weather reminds us of dear home] '* 



ON A CHALK-MARK O.V THE DOOR, 83 

"Cold! bah! I have got such a warnrcoat," says brother 
Bruin, ** I don't mind;'*' and he laughs on his pole, and clucks 
down a bun. The squealing hyenas gnashed their teeth and 
laughed at us quite refreshingly at their window ; and, cold as 
it was, Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, glared at us red-hot through 
his bars, and snorted blasts of hell. The woolly camel leered 
at us quite kindly as he paced round his ring on his silent pads. 
We went to our favorite places. Our dear wambat came up, 
and had himself scratched very affably. Our fellow-creatures 
in the monkey-room held out their little black hands, and 
piteously asked us for Christmas alms. Those darling alliga- 
•tors on their rock winked at us in the most friendly way. The 
solemn eagles sat alone, and scowled at us from their peaks ; 
w^hilst little Tom Ratel tumbled over head and heels for us in 
his usual diverting manner. If I have cares in m.y mind, I 
come to the Zoo, and fancy they don't pass the gate. I recog- 
nize my friends, my enemies, in countless cages. I entertained 
the eagle, the vulture, the old billy-goat, and the black-pated, 
crimson-necked, blear-eyed, baggy, hook-beaked old marabou 
stork yesterday at dinner ; and when Bob's aunt came to tea in 
the evening, and asked him v/hat he had seen, he stepped up 
to her gravely, and said — 

•' First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black, 
Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back. 

Children \ ^^"^^"^ ^ '^^^^' ^^ camel with a hu.mp upon his back! m 
Then I saw the gray wolf, with mutton in his maw; 
Then I saw the wambat waddle in the straw ; 
Then I saw the elephant with his waving trunk, 
Then I saw the monkeys — mercy, how unpleasantly 
they smelt I " 

There. No one can beat that piece of wit, can he. Bob ? And 
so it is all over; but we had a jolly time, whilst you were with 
us, hadn't we ? Present my respects to the doctor ; and I hope, 
my boy, we may spend another merry Christmas next year. 



ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR, 

On the door-post of the house of a friend of mine, a few 
inches above the lock, is a little chalk-mark, which some sport- 
ive boy in passing has probably scratched oa the pillar. The 



84 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

door-steps, the lock, handle, and sa forth, are kept decent!}/ 
enough ; but this chalk-mark, I suppose some three inches out 
of the housemaid's beat, has already been on the door for more 
than a fortnight, and I wonder whether it will be there w^hilst 
this paper is being written, whilst it is at the printer's, and, in 
fine, until the oipnth passes over ? I wonder whether the 
servants in that house will read these remarks about the chalk- 
mark ? That the Comhill Magazine is taken in in that house I 
know^ In fact I have seen it there. In fact I have read it 
there. In fact I have written it there. In a word, the house 
to which I allude is mine — the *^ editors private residence," to 
which, in spite of prayers, entreaties, commands, and threats, 
authors, and ladies especially, 2x//7/ send their communications, 
although they w^on't understand that they injure their own 
interests by so doing ; for how is a man wild has his own work 
to do, his own exquisite inventions to form and perfect — Maria 
to rescue from the unprincipled Earl — the atrocious General to 
confound in his own machinations — the angelic Dean to pro- 
mote to a bishopric, and so forth — how is a man to do all this, 
under ^hundred interruptions, and keep his nerves and temper 
in that just and equable state in which they ought to be w^hen 
he comes to assume the critical office ? As you will send here, 
ladies, I must tell you you have a much worse chance than if 
you forward your valuable articles to Cornhill. Here your 
papers arrive, at dinner-time, we will say. Do you suppose that 
is a pleasant period, and that we are to criticise you between 
the ovum and maliim^ betw^een the soup and the dessert ? I 
have touched, I think, on this subject before. I say again, if 
you want real justice shown you, don't send your papers to the 
private residence. At home, for instance, yesterday, having 
given strict orders that I was to receive nobody *' except on 
business," do you suppose a smiling young Scottish gentleman, 
who forced himself into my study, and there announced himself 
as agent of a Cattle-food Company, was received with pleasure ? 
There, as I sat in my arm-chair, suppose he had proposed to 
draw a couple of my teeth, w^ould I have been pleased ? I 
could have throttled that agent. I dare say the whole of that 
day's work will be found tinged with a ferocious misanthropy, 
occasioned by my clever young friend's intrusion. Cr^rllc-food, 
indeed ! As if beans, oats, warm mashes, and a ball, r.r : to be 
pushed down a man's throat just as he is meditaii:^,j ^n the 
great social problem, or (for I think it was my epic I w-as going 
to touch up) just as he w^as about to soar to the height of the 
empyrean ! 



ox A chAlk-Mark ox the door. 85 

Having- got my cattle-agent out of the door, I resume my 
consideration of that little mark on the door-post, which is 
scored up as the text of the present little sermon ; and which I 
hope will relate, not to chalk, nor to any of its special uses or 
abuses (such as milk, neck-powder, and the like), but to serv- 
ants. Surely ours might remove that unseemly little mark. 
Suppose it were on my coat, might I not request its removal ? 
I remember, when I was at school, a little careless boy, upon 
v;hose forehead an ink-mark remained, and was perfectly recog- 
nizable for three weeks after its first appearance. May I take 
any notice of this chalk-stain on the forehead of my house ? 
Whose business is it to wash that forehead? and ought 1 to 
fetch a brush and a little hot water, and wash it off myself.^ 

Yes. But that spot removed, why not come down at six, 
and wash the door-steps 1 I dare say the early rising and 
exercise would do me a great deal of good. The housemaid, 
in that case, might lie in bed a little later, and have her tea and 
the morning paper brought to her in bed : then, of course, 
Thomas would expect to be helped about the boots and knives ; 
cook about the saucepans, dishes, and what not ; the lady's- 
maid would want somebody to take the curl-papers out of her 
hair, and get her bath ready. You should have a set of servants 
for the servants, and these under-servants should have slaves lo 
wait on them. The king commands the first lord in waiting to 
desire the second lord to intimate to the gentleman usher to 
request the page of the ante- chamber to entreat the groom of 
the stairs to implore John to ask the captain of the buttons to 
desire the maid of the still-room to beg the housekeeper to give 
out a few more lumps of sugar, as his Majesty has none for his 
coffee, which probably is getting cold during the negotiation. 
In our little Brentfords we are all kings, more or less. There 
are orders, gradations, hierarchies, everywhere. In your house 
and mine there are mvsteries unknown to us. I am not soin^ 
into the horrid old question of ''followers.'" I don't mean 
cousins from the country, love-stricken policemen, or gentlemen 
in mufti from Knightsbridge Barracks ; but people who have an 
occult right on the premises ; the uncovenanted servants of the 
house ; gray women who are seen at evening v;ith baskets flitting 
about area railings ; dingy shawls which drop you furtive curt- 
seys in your neighborhood ; demure little Jacks, who start 
up from behind boxes in the pantry. Those outsiders wear 
Thomas's crest and livery, and call him " Sir ; " those silent wo- 
men address the female servants as *' Mum," and curtsey before 
them, squaring their arms over their wretched lean aprons. 



86 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS 

Then, again, those servi servoruvi have dependents in the vast, 
silent, poverty-stricken world outside your comfortable kitchen 
tire, in the world of darkness, and hunger, ajid miserable cold, 
and dank, flagged cellars, and huddled straw, and rags, in 
W'hich pale children are swarming. It may be your beer (which 
runs with great volubility) has a pipe or two which communi- 
cates w^ith those dark caverns vrhere hopeless anguish pours 
the groan, and would scarce see light but for a scrap or two of 
candle which has been whipped away from your worship's 
kitchen. Not many years ago— I don't know whether before 
or since that white mark* w^as drawn on the door — a lady 
occupied the confidential place of housemaid in this '' private 
residence," who brought a good character, who seemed to have 
a cheerful temper, whom I used to hear clattering and bumping 
overhead or on the stairs long before daylight — there, I say, 
was poor Camilla, scouring the plain, trundling and brushing, 
and clattering with her pans and brooms, and humming at her 
work. Well, she had established a smuggling communication 
of beer over the area frontier. This neat-handed Phyllis used 
to pack up the nicest baskets of my provender, and convey 
them to somebody outside — I believe, on my conscience, to 
some poor friend in distress. Camilla vras consigned to her 
doom. She was sent back to her friends in the country; and 
when she was gone we heard of many of her faults. She 
expressed herself, when displeased, in language that I shall 
not repeat. As for the beer and meat, there was no mistake 
about them. But apresl Can I have the heart to be very 
angry with that poor jade for helping another poorer jade out 
of my larder ? On your honor and conscience, when you were 
a boy, and the apples looked temptingly over Farmer Quar- 

ringdon's hedge, did you never ? When there was a grand 

dinner at home, and you were sliding, with Master Bacon, up 
and down the stairs, and the dishes came out, did you ever do 
such a thing as just to — ? Well, in many and many a respect 
servants are like children. They are under domination. They 
are subject to reproof, to ill temper, to petty exactions and 
stupid tyrannies not seldom. They scheme, conspire, fawn, , 
and are hypocrites. " Little boys should not loll on chairs.'" 
" Little girls should be seen, and not heard ; " and so forth. 
Have we not almost all learnt these expressions of old foozles : 
and uttered them ourselves w'hen in the square-toed state ? 
The Eton Master, who was breaking a lance with our Pater- 
familias of late, turned on Paterfamilias, saying, He knows not 
the nature and exquisite candor of well-bred English boys* 



ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR, gy 

Exquisite fiddlestick's end, Mr. Master ! Do you mean for to go 
for to tell us that the relations between young gentlemen and 
their schoolmasters are entirely frank and cordial ; that the lad 
is familiar with the man who can have him flogged ; never shirks 
his exercises ; never gets other boys to do his verses ; never 
does other boys' verses ; never breaks bounds ; never tells fibs 
— I mean the fibs permitted by scholastic honor ? Did I know 
^f a boy who pretended to such a character, I would forbid my 
scapegraces to keep company with him. Did I know a school- 
master W'ho pretended to believe in the existence of many 
hundred such boys in one school at one time, I w^ould set that 
man down as a baby in knowledge of the w^orld. *' Who was 
making that noise ? " '' I don't know, sir." — And he knows it 
was the boy next him in school. " Who was climbing over 
that w^all? " ^'I don't know^, sir." — And it is in the speaker's 
own trousers, very likely, the glass bottle-tops have left their 
cruel scars. And so wdth servants. " Who ate up the three 
pigeons which went down in the pigeon-pie at breakfast this 
morning t " '^ O dear me ! sir, it was John, who w^ent away last 
month ! " — or, ^" I think it was Miss Mary's canary-bird, which 
got out of the cage, and is so fond of pigeons, it never can have 
enough of them." Yes, it was the canary-bird; and Eliza saw 
it ; and Eliza is ready to vow she did. These statements are 
not true ; but please don't call them lies. This is not lying \ 
this is voting with your party. You must back your owm side. 
The servants'-hall stands by the servants'-hall against the 
dining-room. The schoolboys don't tell tales of each other. 
They agree not to choose to know who has made the noise, 
who has broken the window, w'ho has eaten up the pigeons, 
who has picked all the plovers'-eggs out of the aspic, how it is 
that liqueur brandy of Gledstane's is in such porous glass 
bottles — and so forth. wSuppose Brutus had a footman, who 
came and told him that the butler drank the Curagoa, which of 
these servants would you dismiss ? — the butler, perhaps, but the 
footmaiT"certainly. 

No. If your plate and glass are beautifully bright, your 
bell quickly answ^ered, and Thomas ready, neat, and good- 
humored, you are not to expect absolute truth from him. The 
very obsequiousness and perfection of his service prevents 
truth. He may be ever so unwell in mind or body, and he 
must go through his service — hand the shining plate, replenish 
the spotless glass, lay the glittering fork — never laugh when 
you yourself or your guests joke — be profoundly attentive, and 
yet look utterly impassive — exchange a few hurried curses 



§8 kOUXDABOUT PAPERS, 

at the door with that unseen slavey who ministers without, and 
with you be perfectly cahn and poUte. If you are ill, he 
will come twenty times in an hour to your beli ; or leave 
the girl of his heart — his mother, who is going to America 
— his dearest friend, who has come to say farewell — his 
lunch, and his glass of beer just freshly poured out — any or* 
all of these, if the door-bell rings, or the master calls out 
'' Thomas " from the hall. Do you suppose you can expect 
absolute candor from a man whom you may order to powder his 
hair? As between the Rev. Henry Holyshade and his pupil 
the idea of entire unreserve is utter bosh ; so the truth as 
between you and Jeames or Thomas, or Mary the housem.aid, 
or Betty the cook, is relative, and not to be demanded on one 
side or the other. Why, respectful civility is itself a lie, which 
poor Jeames often has to utter or perform to many a swagger- 
ing vulgarian, who should black Jeames's boots, did Jeames 
w^ear them and not shoes. There is your little Tom, just ten, 
ordering the great, large, quiet, orderly young man about — 
shrieking calls for hot water — bullying Jeames because the 
boots are not varnished enough, or ordering liim to go to the 
stables, and ask Jenkins why the deuce Tomkins hasn't brought 
his pony round — or what you will. There is mamma rapping 
the knuckles of Pincot the lady's-maid, ^nd little ]Miss scolding 
Martha, who waits up five-pair of stairs in the nursery. Little 
Miss, Tommy, papa, mamma, you all expect from Martha, from 
Pincot, from Jenkins, from Jeames, obsequious civility and 
willing service. ]\Iy dear good people, you can't have truth 
too. Suppose you ask for your newspaper, and Jeames says, 
** r'm reading it, and jest beg not to be disturbed ; " or suppose 
you ask for a can of water, and he remarks, " You great, big, 
'ulking fellar, ain't you big enough to bring it hup yoursulf .^ '' 
what would your feelings be .^ Now, if you made similar 
proposals or requests to Mr. Jones next door, this is the kind 
Ol answer Jones would give you. You get truth habitually 
from equals only ; so my good ]Mr. Holyshade, don't talk to me 
about the habitual candor of the vouno^ Etonian of hi^h birth, 
or I have my own opinion of your candor or discernment 
when you do. No. Tom Bowling is the soul of honor and has 
been true to Black-eyed Syousan since the last time they 
parted at Wapping Old Stairs ; but do you suppose Tom is 
perfectly frank, familiar, and above-board in his conversation 
with Admiral Nelson, K. C. B. ? There are secrets, prevarica- 
tions, fibs, if you v»ill, between Tom and the Admiral — between 
your crew and t/ieir captain. I know I hire a worthy, clean, 



ox A CHALK-.\fARX ON THE DOOR. 89 

agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so 
many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other 
than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let 
my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two on his 
own account. 

Some dozen years ago, my family being absent in a distant 
part of the country, and m\ business detaining me in London, 
I remained in my own house with three servants on board 
wages. I used only to breakfast at home ; and future ages will 
be interested to know that this meal used to consist, at that 
period, of tea, a penny roll, a pat of butter, and, perhaps, an 
^gg. My weekly bill used invariably to be about fifty shillings, 
so that, as I never dined in the house, you see, my breakfast, 
consisting of the delicacies before mentioned, cost about seven 
shillings and threepence per diem. I must ; therefore, have 
consumed daily — 

s. d. 
A quarter of a pound of tea (say) ... 13 

A penny roll (say) 10 

One pound of butter (say) ....13 
One pound of lump sugar ....10 
A new-laid egg 29 

Which is the only possible way I have for making out the sum. 

Well, I fell ill while under this regimen, and had an illness 
which, but for a certain doctor, who was brought to me by a 
certain kind friend I had in those days, would I think, have 
prevented the possibility or my telling this interesting anecdote 
now^ a dozen years after. Don't be frightened, my dear 
madam ; it is not ^ lioirid, sentimental account of a malady 
you are corpiing to^— only a question of grocer}\ - This illness, 
I say, lasted some seventeen days, during which the servants 
were admirably attentive and kind ; and poor John, especially, 
was up at all hours, watching night after night — amiable, 
cheerful, untiring, respectful, the very best of Johns and nurses. 

Twdce or thrice in the seventeen days I may have had a 
glass of eau sucree — say a dozen glasses of eau x//rr/<f— certainly 
not more. Well, this admirable, watchful, cheerful, tender, af- 
fectionate John brought me in a little bill for seventeen pounds 
of sugar consumed during the illness — *' Often 'ad sugar and 
water; ahvays was a callin' for it,'' says John, wagging his head 
quite gravely. You are dead, years and years ago, poor John — 
so patient, so friendly, so kind, so cheerful to the invalid in the 
fever. But confess, now% w^herever you are, that seventeen 
pounds of sugar to make six glasses of eau sucree was a little 
too strong, wasn't it, John ? Ah, hov/ frankly, how trustily, 



90 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



how bravely he lied, poor John ! One evening, being at Brigh^ 
ton in the convalescence, I remember John's step^vas unsteady, 
his voice thick, his laugh queer — and having some quinine to 
give me, John brought the glass to me — not to my mouth, but 
struck me with it pretty smartly in the eye, which was not the 
way in which Dr. Elliotson had intended his prescription should 
be taken. Turning that eye upon him, I ventured to hint that 
my attendant had been drinking. Drinking ! I never was 
more humiliated at the thought of my own injustice than at 
John's reply. " Drinking ! Sulp me ! I have had only one pint 
of beer with my dinner at one o'clock I — and he retreats, holding 
on by a chair. These are fibs, you see, appertaining to the 
situation. John is drunk. '' Snip him, he has only had an 
'alf-pint of beer with his dinner six hours ago ;" and none of 
his fellow-servants will say otherwise. Polly is smuggled on 
board ship. Who tells the lieutenant when he comes his rounds ? 
Boys are playing cards in the bedroom. The outlying fag 
announces master coming — out go candles — cards popped into 
bed — boys sound asleep. Who had that light in the dormitorv^ ? 
Law bless you ! the poor dear innocents are every one snoring. 
Every one snoring, and every snore is a lie told through the 
nose ! Suppose one of your boys or mine is engaged in that 
awful crime, are we going to break our hearts about it t Come, 
come. We pull a long face, waggle a grave head, and chuckle 
within our waistcoat. 

Between me and those fellow-creatures of mine who are 
sitting in the room below, how strange and wonderful is the 
partition.! We meet at every hour of the daylight, and are 
indebted to each other for a hundred offices of duty and comfort 
•)f life ; and we live together for years, and don't know each 
other. John's voice to me is quite different from John's voice 
when it addresses his mates below. If I met Hannah iu the 
street with a bonnet on, I doubt whether I should know her. 
And all these good people with whom I may live for years and 
years, have cares, interests, dear friends and relatives, mayhap 
schemes, passions, longing hopes, tragedies of their own, from 
which a carpet and a few planks and beams utterly'separate 
me. When we were at the seaside, and poor Ellen used to 
look so pale, and run after the postman's bell, and seize a letter 
in a great scrawling hand, and read it, and cry in a corner, how 
should we know that the poor little thing's heart was breaking ? 
She fetched the w^ater, and she smoothed the ribbons, and she 
laid out the dresses, and brought the early cup of tea in tj:ie 
morning, just as if she had had no cares to keep her awake. 



& 



ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR. gt 

Henry (who lived out of the house) was the sen'ant of a friend 
of mine who lived in chambers. There was a dinner one day, 
and Henr}^ waited all through the dinner. The champagne 
was properly iced, the dinner was excellently served ; every 
guest was attended to ; the dinner disappeared ; the dessert 
was set ; the claret was in perfect order, carefully decanted, 
and more ready. And then Henr}' said, '' If you please, sir, 
may I go home 1 " He had received word that his house was 
on iire ; and, having seen through his dinner, he wished to go 
and look after his children, and little sticks of furniture. Why, 
such a man's livery is a uniform of honor. The crest on his 
button is a badge of bravery. 

Do you see — I imagine I do myself — in these little instances, 
a tinge of humor .^ Ellen's heart is breaking for handsome 
Jeames of Buckley Square, \vhose great legs are kneeling, and 
who has given a lock of his precious powdered head, to some 
other than Ellen. Henry is preparing the sauce for his master's 
wild ducks, while the engines are squirting over his own little 
nest and brood. Lift these figures up but a story from the 
basement to the ground-floor, and the fun is gone. We may be 
en pleine tragcdie. Ellen may breathe her last sigh in blank 
verse, calling down blessings upon Jeames the profligate who 
deserts her. Henry is a hero, and epaulettes are on his shoul- 
ders. Afqai sciebat, (S:c., whatever tortures are in store for him, 
he will be at his post of duty. 

You concede, however, that there is a touch of humor in 
the two tragedies here mentioned. Why ? Is it that the idea 
of persons at service is somehow ludicrous ? Perhaps it is 
made more so in this country by the splendid appearance of 
the liveried domestics of great people. When you think that 
we dress in black ourselves, and put our fellow-creatures in 
green, pink, or canary-colored breeches : that we order them to 
plaster their hair with flour, having brushed that nonsense out 
of our own heads fifty years ago ; that some of the most gen- 
teel and stately among us cause the men who drive their car- 
riages to put on little Albino wigs, and sit behind great nose- 
gays — I say I suppose it is this heaping of gold lace, gaudy 
colors, blooming plushes, on honest John Trot, which makes 
the man absurd in our eyes, wiio need be nothing but a simple 
reputable citizen and in-door laborer. Suppose, my dear sir, 
that you yourself were suddenly desired to put on a full dress, 
or even undress, domestic uniform with our friend Jones's 
crest repeated in varied combinations of button on your front 
and back .^ Suppose, madam, your son were told, that he could 



8 



^2 RGijNDABOUt PAPERS, 

not get out except in lower garments of carnation or amber- 
colored plush — would you let him p * * =^ But as you justly say, 
this is not the question, and besides it is a question fraught 
with danger, sir ; and radicalism, sir ; and subversion of the 
very foundations of the social fabric, sir. * * * Well, John, we 
won't enter on your great domestic question. Don't let us dis- 
port with Jeames's dangerous strength, and the edge-tools 
about his knife-board : but with Betty and Susan who wield the 
playful mop, and set on the simmering kettle. Surely you have 
heard Mrs. Toddles talking to Mrs. Doddles about their mutual 
maids. Miss Susan must have a silk gown, and Miss Betty 
must wear flowers under her bonnet when she goes to church 
if you please, and did you ever hear such impudence ? The 
servant in many small establishments is a constant and end- 
less theme of talk. What small wage, sleep, meal, w^hat end- 
less scoijring, scolding, tramping on messages fall to that poor 
Susan's lot ; what indignation at the little kindly passing word 
with the grocer's young man, the pot-boy, the chubby butcher ! 
Where such, things will end, my dear Mrs. Toddles, I don't 
know. What wages they will want next, my dear Mrs. Doddles, 
&c. 

Here, dear ladies, is an advertisement which I cut out of 
The Times a few days since, expressly for you : 

ic A LADY is desirous of obtaining a SITUATION for a very respectable young 
•^^ woman as HEAD KITCHEN-MAID under a man-cook. She has lived four 
years under a ver>'' good cook and housekeeper. Can make ice, and is an excellent baker. 
She wili only take a place in a very good family, where she can " have the opportunity of 
improving herself, and, if possible, s'taying for two years. Apply by letter to," &c., &c. 

There, Mrs. Toddles, what do you think of that, and did 
you ever ? Well, no, Mrs. Doddles. Upon my word now, Mrs. 
T., I don't think I ever did. A respectable young woman — as^ 
head kitchen-maid — under a man-copk, will only take a place 
in a very good family, where she can improve, and stay two 
years. Just note up the conditions, Mrs. Toddles, mum, if you 
please, mum, and the?i let us see : — 

1. This young woman is to be head kitcnen-maid, that is to 

say, there is to be a chorus of kitchen-maids, of which 
Y. W. is to be chief. 

2. She will only be situated under a man-cook. (A) Ought 

he to be a French cook ; and (B), if so, would the lady 
desire him to be a Protestant? 



ox A CHALK-MARK OX THE DOOR. ^3 

3. She will only take a place in a very good family. How old 

ought the family to be, and what do you call good ? that 
is the question. How long after the Conquest will do ? 
Would a banker's family do, or is a baronet's good 
enough ? Best say what rank in the peerage would be 
sufficiently high. But the lady does not say whether 
she would like a High Church or a Low Church family. 
Ought there to be unmarried sons' and may they follow 
a profession ? and please say how many daughters ; and 
w^oiild the lady like them to be musical ? And how 
many company dinners a week ? Not too many, for fear 
of fatiguing the upper kitchen-maid : but sufficient, so as 
to keep the upper kitchen-maid's hand in*. [N.B. — I 
think I can see a rather bewildered expression on the 
countenances of Mesdames Doddles and Toddles as I 
am prattling on in this easy bantering way.] 

4. The head kitchen-maid wishes to stay for two years, and 

improve herself under the man-cook, and having of 
course sucked the brains (as the phrase is) from under 
the chef's nightcap, then the head kitchen-maid wishes 
to go. 

And upon my word, ]\lrs. Toddles, mum, I will go and fetch 
the cab for her. The cab ? Why not her ladyship's own tar- 
riage and pair, and the head coachman to drive away the head 
kitchen-maid t You see she stipulates for everything — the time 
to come ; the time to stay ; the family she will be with ; and as 
soon as she has improved herself enough, of course the upper 
kitchen-maid wilPstep into the carriage and drive off. 

Well, upon my word and conscience, if things are coming 
to this pass, Mrs. Toddles and Mrs. Doddles, mum, I think I 
will go up stairs and get a basin and a sponge, and then down 
stairs and get some hot water ; and then I will go and scrub 
that chalk-mark off my own door with my own hands. 

It is wiped off, I declare ! After ever so many weeks ! Who 
has done it .^ It was just a little round-about mark, you know, 
and it was there for days and weeks, before T ever thought it 
would be the text of a Roundabout Paper, 



94 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS 



ON BEING FOUND OUT, 

At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was 
a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, 
I remember the wiscclcre of a master ordering us all, one night, 
to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and 
thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen-house, (I was 
but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can't 
exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens,) and in 
that house to put our hands into a sack which stood on a bench, 
a candle burning beside it. I put my hand into the sack. My 
hand came out quite.black. I went and joined the other boys 
in the school-room ; and all their hands were black too. 

By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, 
I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowledging that I am a hun- 
dred and fifty-six next birthday) I could not understand what 
was the meaning of this night excursion — this candle, this tool- 
house, this bag of soot. I think we little boys were taken out 
of our sleep to be brought to the ordeal. We came, then, and . 
showed our little hands to the master ; washed them or not — 
most probably, I should say, not — and so went bewildered back 
to bed. 

Something had been stolen in the school that day ; and Mr. 
Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious method of find- 
ing out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, 
if guilty, the rogue would shirk from doing), all we boys were 
subject to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object was, 
or who stole it. We all had black hands to show to the master. 
And the thief, whoever he was, v^as not Found Out that time. 

I wonder if the rascal is alive — an elderly scoundrel he 
must be by this time ; and a hoary old hypocrite, to whom an old 
school-fellow presents his kindest regards — parenthetically re- 
marking what a dreadful place that private school was ; cold, 
chilblains, bad dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful ! 
— Are you alive still, I say, you nameless villain, who escaped 
discovery on that day of crime ? I hope you have escaped 
often since, old sinner. Ah, what a lucky thing it is, for you 
and me, my man, that we are not found out in all our peccadil 
loes ; and that our backs can slip away from the master and the 
cane ! 

Just consider what life would be, if every rogue was found 



ox BELVG FOUND OUT, 



95 



out, and flogged cormn populo ! What a butchery, what an in- 
decency, what an endless swishing of the rod ! Don't cxy out~ 
about my misanthropy. My good friend Mealymouth, I will 
trouble you to tell me, do you go to church ? When there, do 
vou say, or do you not, that you are a miserable sinner ? and 
saying so, do you believe or disbelieve it ? If you are a M. S.. 
don't you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are 
to be let off ? I say again, what a blessed thing it is that we 
are not all found out ! 

Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being 
found out, and punished accordingly. Fancy all the boys in 
all the school being whipped ; and then tte assistants, and then 
the head master (Dr. Badford let us call him\ Fancy the pro- 
vost-marshal being tied up, having previously superintended the 
correction of the whole army. After the young gentlemen have 
had their turn for the faultv exercises, fancv Dr. Lincolnsinn 
being taken up for certain faults in his Essay and Review. 
After the clerg}aiian has cried his peccavi, suppose we hoist up 
a bishop, and give him a couple of dozen ! (I see my Lord 
Bishop of Double-Gloucester sitting in a very uneasy posture on 
his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off the bishop, 
what are we to say to the Minister who appointed him ? !NIy 
Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correc- 
tion to a boy of your age ; but really * ^ * Sisfe ta?idem^ car- 
7:ifex ! The butchery is too horrible. The hand drops power- 
less, appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and 
brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I say again : 
and protest, my dear brethren, against our having our deserts. 

To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough ; 
but imagine all women found out in the distinguished social 
circle in which' you and I have the honor to move. Is it not 
a mercy that a many of these fair criminals remain unpunished 
and undiscovered } There is Mrs. Longbow, who is forever 
practising, and who shoots poisoned arrows, too ; when you 
meet her you don't call her liar,- and charge her with the wicked- 
ness she has done, and is doing. There is ]Mrs. Painter, who 
passes for a most respectable woman, and a model in society. 
There is no use in saying what you really know regarding her 
and her goings on. There is Diana Hunter — what a little 
haughty prude she is ; and yet we know stories about her which 
are not altogether edifying. I say it is best, for the sake of 
the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't 
want your children to knovv' the history of that lady in the next 
box, who^s so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah me, 



96 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



what would life be if we were all found out, and punished foi 
all our faults ? Jack Ketch would be in permanence ; and then 
who would hang Jack Ketch ? 

They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found out. 
Psha ! I have heard an authority awfully competent vow and 
declare that scores and hundreds of murders are committed, 
and nobody is the wiser. . That terrible man mentioned one or 
two ways of committing. murder, which he maintained were quite 
common, and were scarcely ever found out. A man, for in- 
stance, comes home to his wife, and ^ "^ ^ but I pause— I know 
that this Magazine has a very jarge circulation. Hundreds and 
hundreds of thousands — why not say a million of people at 
once ? — well, say a million, read it. And among these count- 
less readers, I might be teaching' some monster how to make 
away with his wife without being found out, some fiend of a 
woman how to destroy heT dear husband. I will //{?/ then tell 
this easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by 
a most respectable party in the confidence of private inter- 
course. Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most 
simple and easy receipt — it seems to me almost infallible^ — and 
come to grief in consequence, and be found out and hanged ? 
Should I ever pardon myself for having been the means of do- 
ihg injury to a single one of our esteemed subscribers ? The 
prescription whereof I speak — that is to say, whereof I don't 
speak — shall be buried in this bosom. No, I am a humane 
man. I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my 
wife, "My dear ! I am going away for a few days to Brighton. 
Here are all the keys of the house. You may open every door 
and closet, except the one at the end of the oak-room opposite 
the fireplace, with the little bronze Shakspeare on the mantel- 
piece (or what not)." I don't say this to a v/oman — unless, to 
be sure, I want to get rid of her — because, after such a caution, 
I know she'll peep into the closet. I say nothing about the 
closet at all. I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom 
I love, 1 ul who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of harm's 
way. You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground 
with your lovely little feet, on the table wit'h your sweet rosy 
fingers, and cry, " Oh, sneerer ! You don't know the depth of 
woman's feeling, the lofty scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of 
mean curiosity in the sex, or never, never w^ould you libel us so ! " 
Ah, Delia ! dear, dear Delia ! It is because I fancy I do know some- 
thing about you (not all, mind — no, no ; no man knows that) — 
Ah, my bride, my ringdove, my rose, my poppet — choose, in 
fact, whatever name you like — bulbul of my grove, fbuntain of 



ox BEING FOUXD OUT. ^y 

my desert, sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dun- 
geoned existence, it is because I do know a little about you that 
I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and keep my 
key in my pocket. You take away that closet-key then, and 
the house-key. You lock Delia in. You keep her out of 
harm's way and gadding, and so she never can be found out. 

And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we 
are being found out every day. You remember that old story 
of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one 
night how the first confession he ever received v;as — from 
a murderer let us say. Presently enters to supper the Marquis 
de Croquemitaine. '* Palsambleu. abbe ! " says the brilliant 
marquis, taking a pinch of snuff, '^ are you here '^. Gentlemen 
and ladies.! I was the abbe's first penitent, and I made him 
a confession which I promise you astonished him." 

To be sure how queerly things are found out ! Here is an 
instance. Only the other day I was writing in these Round- 
about Papers about a certain man, whom I facetiously called 
Baggs, and who had abused me to my friends, who of course 
told me. Shortly after that paper was published another 
friend — Sacks let us call him — scowls fiercely at me as I am 
sitting in perfect good-humor at the club, and passes on without 
speaking. A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is about him that 
I was writing: whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I never 
had him once in my mind, and was pointing my moral from 
quite another man. But don't you see, by this wrath of the 
guilty-conscienced Sacks, that he had been abusing ipe too ? " 
He has owned himself guilty, never having been accused. He 
has winced when nobody thought of hitting him. I did but 
put the cap out, and madly butting and chafing, behold my 
friend rushes to put his head into it ! Never mind. Sacks, you 
are found out ; but I bear you no malice, my man. 

And yet to be found out, I know from my own experience, 
must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the in- 
ward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With 
fierce moustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense 
stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear 
fearfully at cabmen and women ; brandish my bludgeon, and 
perhaps knock down a little man or two with it : brag of the 
images which I break at the shooting-gallery, and pass amongst 
my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of neither man nor 
dragon. Ah me ! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up 
and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the heads 
of my friends looking; out of all the club windows. My reputa 

7 



(^g ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

tion is gone. I frighten no man more. My nose is pulled by 
whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it. I am 
found out. And in the days of my triumphs, when people 
were yet afraid of me, and were taken in by m^' swagger, I 
always knew that I was a lily-liver, and expected that I should 
be found out some day. 

That certainty of being found out must haunt and depress 
many a bold braggadocio spirit. Let us say it is a clergyman, 
who can pump copious floods of tears out of his own eyes and 
those of his audience. He thinks to himself, " I am but a 
poor swindling, chattering rogue. ]My bills are unpaid. I 
have jilted several women whom I have promised to marry. 
I don't know whether I believe what I preach, and I know 
I have stolen the ver}^ sermon over which I have been snivel- 
ling. Have they found me out ? '' says he, as his head drops 
down on the cushion. 

Then your writer, poet, historian, novelist, or what not ? 
T\i^ Beacon says that '^ Jones's work is one of the first order.'' 
The Z^;;// declares that ^'Jones's tragedy surpasses every work 
since the days of Him of Avon." The G?;;/^/ asserts that " J.'s 
^ Life of Goody Twoshoes ' is a '/-%ixa tz az\, a noble and en- 
during monument to the fame of that admirable English- 
woman," and so forth. But then Jones knows that he has 
lent the critic of the Beacon five pounds ; that his publisher 
has a half share in the Lamp ; and that the Cornet comes re- 
peatedly to dine with him. It is all very well. Jones is im- 
mortal until he is found out ; and then down comes the ex- 
tinguisher, and the immortal is dead and buried. The idea 
(dies irce^ !') of discover}- must haunt many a man, and make him 
uneasy, as the trumpets are puffing in his triumph. Brown, 
w^ho has a higher place than he deserves, cowers before 
Smith, who has found him out. What is a chorus of critics 
shouting '^ Bravo ? " — a public clapping hands and flinging 
garlands ? Brown knows that Smith has found him out. Puff, 
trumpets ! Wave, banners ! Huzza, boys, for the immortal 
Brown ! " This is all very well," B. thinks (bowing the while, 
smiling, laying his hand to his heart); ^* but there stands 
Smith at the windows : he has measured me ; and some day 
the others will find me out too." It is a very curious sensation 
to sit by a man who has found you out, and who, as you know, 
has found you out ; or, vice versa, to sit with a man whom 
you have found out. His talent ? Bah ! His virtue ? We 
know a little story or two about his virtue, and he knows we 
know it. We are thinking over friend Robinson's antecedents, 



ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, pg 

as we grin, bow and talk ; and we are both humbugs together. 
. Robinson a good fellow, is he ? You know how he behaved to 
Hicks ? A good-natured man, is he ? Pray do you remember 
that little story of Mrs. Robinson's black eye ? How men have 
to work, to talk, to smile, to go to bed, and Xxn and sleep, 
with this dread of being found out on their consciences ! Bar- 
dolph, who has robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a 
purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with 
their companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says 
" Oh, Bardolph ! I want you about that there pyx business ! '' 
Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his 
hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks away quite meekly. 
He is found out. He must go. ** Good-by, Doll Tearsheet 1 
Good-by, Mrs. Quickly, ma'am ! " The other gentlemen and 
ladies de la societe look on and exchange mute adieux with the 
departmg friends. And an assured time will come when the 
other gentlemen and ladies will be found out too. 

What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature it has 
been that, for the most part, our womankind are not endowed 
with the faculty of finding us out ! They don't dpubt, and 
probe, and weigh, and take your measure. Lay down this 
paper, my benevolent friend and reader, go into your drawingr 
room now, and utter a joke ever so old, and I wager sixpence 
the ladies there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house, 
and tell Mrs. Brown and the young ladies what you think of 
him, and see what a welcome you will get ! In like manner, 
let him come to your house, and tell your good lady his candid 
opinion of you, and fancy how she will receive him I Would 
you have your wife and children know you exactly for what 
you are, and esteem you precisely at your worth } If so, my 
friend, you will live in a dreary house, and you will have but a 
chilly fireside. Do you suppose the people round it don't see 
your homely face as under a glamor, and, as it were, with a 
halo of love round it ? You don't fancy you are,, as you seem 
to them ? No such thing, my man. Put away that monstrous 
conceit, and be thankful that they have not found you out. 



ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, 

Here have I just read of a game played at a country 
house ? The party assembles round a table wdth pens, ink, 
and paper. Some one narrates a tale containing more or less 



lOO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

incidents and personages. Each person of the company then 
writes down, to the best of his memory and ability, the anec- 
dote just narrated, and finally the papers are to be read out 
I do not say I should like to play often at this game,, which 
might possibly be a tedious and lengthy pastime, not by any 
means so amusing as smoking a cigar in the conservatory ; or 
even listening to the young ladies playing their piano-pieces ; 
or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering round the bottle and talking 
over the morning's run with the hounds ; but surely it is a 
moral and ingenious sport. They say the variety of narratives 
is often very odd and amusing. The original story becomes 
so. changed and distorted that at the end of all the statements 
you are puzzled to know where the truth is at all. As time 
is of small importance to the cheerful persons engaged in this 
sport, perhaps a good way of playing it would be to spread it 
over a couple of years. Let the people who played the game 
in '60 all meet and play it once more in '61, and each write his 
story over again. Then bring out your original and compare 
notes. Not only will the stories differ from each other, but the 
writers Avill probably differ from themselves. In the course of 
the year incidents will grow or will dwindle strangely. The 
least authentic of the statements will be so lively or so mali- 
cious, or so neatly put, that it will appear most like the truth, 
I like these tales and sportive exercises. I had begun a little 
print collection once. I had Addison in his nightgown in bed at 
Holland House, requesting young Lord Warwick to remark 
how a Christian should die. I had Cambronne clutching his 
cocked-hat, and uttering the immortal /(TZ Garde meurt et 7ie se 
re7id pas, I had the " Vengeur " going down, and all the crew 
hurraying like madmen. I had Alfred toasting the muffin; 
Curtius (Haydon) jumping into the gulf; with extracts from 
Napoleon's bulletins, and a fine authentic portrait of Baron 
Munchausen. 

What man who has been before the public at all has not 
heard similar wonderful anecdotes regarding himself and his 
own history .^ In these humble essaykins I have taken leave 
to egotize. I cry out about the shoes v/hich pinch me, as I 
fancy, more naturally and pathetically than if my neighbor's 
corns were trodden under foot. I prattle about the dish which 
I love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard yesterday — ;^bout 
Brown's absurd airs — Jones's ridiculous elation when he thinks 
he has caught me in a blunder (a part of the fun, you see, is 
that Jones will read this, and will perfectly well know that I , 
mean him, and that we shall meet and grin at each other with «' 



ON A HUNDRED^'EARS HENCE. loi 

entire politeness). This is not the highest kind of speculation, 
I confess, but it is a gossip which amuses some folks. A brisk 
and honest small-beer will refresh those who do not care for 
the frothy outpouring of heavier taps. A two of clubs may be 
a good, handy little card sometimes, and able to tackle a kind of 
diamonds, if it is a little trump. Some philosophers get their 
wisdom with deep thought and out of ponderous libraries ; I 
pick up my small crumbs of cogitation at a dinner-table ; or 
from Mrs. Mary and Miss Louisa, as they are prattling over 
their five-o'clock tea. 

Well, yesterday at dinner Jucundus was good enough to 
tell me a story about myself, which he had heard f/om a lady of 
his acquaintance, to whom I send my best compliments. The 
tale is this. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 31st of 
November last, just before sunset, I was seen leaving No. 96 
Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, leading two little children by 
the hand, one of them in a nankeen pelisse, and the other having 
a mole on the third finger of his left hand (she thinks it was 
the third finger, but is quite sure it was the left hand). Thence I 
walked with them to Charles Boroughbridge's, pork and sausage 
man, No. 29 Upper Theresa Road. Here, whilst I left the little 
girl innocently eating a polony in the front shop, I and Borough- 
bridge retired with the boy into the back parlor, where Mrs. 
Boroughbridge was playing cribbage. She put up the cards 
and boxes, took out a chopper and a napkin, and v/e cut the little 
boy's little throat (which he bore with great pluck and resolution), 
and made him into sausage-meat by the aid of Purkis's excellent 
sausage-machine. The little girl at first could not understand 
her brother's absence, but, under the pretence of taking her to 
see Mr. Fechter in Hamlet, I led her down to the New River at 
Sadler's Wells, where a body of a child in a nankeen pelisse 
was subsequently found, and has never been recognized to 
the present day. And this Mrs. Lynx can aver, because she 
saw the whole transaction with her own eyes, as she told Mr. 
Jucundus. 

I have altered the little details of the anecdote somewhat. 
But this story is, I vow and declare, as true as Mrs. Lynx's. 
Gracious goodness ! how do lies begin ? What are the averages 
of lying? Is the same amount of lies told about every man, and 
do we pretty much all tell the same amount of lies ? Is the aver- 
age greater in Ireland than Scotland, or vice versa — among women 
than among men ? Is this a lie I am telling now ? If I am talking 
about you, the odds are, perhaps, that it is. I look back at some 
which have been told about me, and speculate on them with 



1 02 ROUNDABQUT PAPERS. 

thanks and wonder. Dear friends have told them of me, have 
told them to me of myself. Have they not to and of you, dear 
friend ? A friend of mine was dining at a large dinner of clergy 
men, and a storj% as true as the sausage story above given, was 
told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose 
frocks sit some anile chatterboxes, as any man who knows this 
world knows. They take the privilege of their gown. They 
cabal, and tattle, and hiss, and cackle comminations under their 
breath. I say the old women of the other sex are not more talk- 
ative or more mischievous than some of these. " Such a man 
ought not to be spoken to," says Gobemouche, narrating the 
story — and such a stoiy ! "And I am surprised he is admitted 
into society at all." Yes, dear Gobemouche, but the story Avasn't 
true ; and I had no more done the wicked deed in question than 
I had run away with the Queen of Sheba. 

I have always longed to know what that story was (or what 
collection of histories), Vv'hich a lady had in her mind to whom a 
servant of mine applied for a place, when I was breaking up my 
establishment once, and going abroad. Brown went with a very 
good character from us, which, indeed, she fully deserved after 
several years' faithful service. But when Mrs. Jones read the 
name of the person out of whose employment Brown came, 
"That is quite sufficient," says Mrs. Jones. "You may go. I 
will never take a servant out of that house." Ah Mrs. Jones, 
how I should like to know what that crime was, or what that 
series of villanies,_ which made you determine never to take a 
servant out of my house. Do you believe in the story of the 
little boy and the sausages ? Have you swallowed that little 
minced infant ? Have you devoured that young Polonius ? 
Upon my word you have maw enough. We somehow greedily 
gobble down all stories in which the characters of our friends 
are chopped up, and believe wrong of them without inquiry. 
In a late serial work written by this hand, I remember making 
some pathetic remarks about our propensity to believe ill of 
our neighbors — and I remember the remarks, not because they 
were valuable, or novel, or ingenious, but because, within three 
days after they had appeared in print, the moralist who wrote 
them, walking home with a friend, heard a story about another 
friend, which story he straightway believed, and which story 
was scarcely more true than that sausage fable which is here 
set down. O 7nea culpa, mea maxima culpa I But though the 
preacher trips, shall not the doctrine be good ? Yea, brethren ! 
Here be the rods. Look you, here are the scourges. Choose 
me a nice long, swishing, buddy one, light and well-poised in 



ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, 



103 



the handle, thick and bushy at the tail. Pick me out a whip- 
cord thong with some dainty knots in it — and now — we all de- 
serve it — whish, whish, whish ! Let us cut into each other all 
round. 

A favorite liar and servant of mine was a man I once had 
to drive a brougham. He never came to my house, except for 
orders, and once when he helped to wait at dinner so clumsily 
that it was agreed we would dispense with his further efforts. 
The (job) brougham horse used to look dreadfully lean and 
tired, and the livery-stable keeper complained that we worked 
him too hard. Now, it turned out that there was a neighbor- 
ing butcher's lady who liked to ride in a brougham ; and Tom- 
kins lent her ours, drove her cheerfully to Richmond and Put- 
ney, and, I suppose, took out a payment in mutton-chops. We 
gave this good Tomkins wine and medicine for his family when 
sick — we supplied him with little comforts and extras which 
need not now be remembered — and the grateful creature re- 
warded us by informing some of our tradesmen whom he hon- 
ored with his custom, '* Mr. Roundabout ? Lor' bless you ! I 
carry him up to bed drunk every night in the week." He, 
Tomkins, being a man of seven stone weight and five feet high ; 
whereas his employer was — but here modesty interferes, and I 
decline to 'enter into the avoirdupois question. 

Now, what was Tomkins' motive for the utterance and dis- 
semination of these lies ? They could further no conceivable 
end or interest of his own. Had they been true stories, Tom- 
kins' master would still, and reasonably, have been more angry 
than at the fables. It was but suicidal slander on the part of 
Tomkins — must come to a discovery — must end in a punish- 
ment. The poor wretch had got his place under, as it turned 
out, a fictitious character. He might have stayed in it, for of 
course Tomkins had a wife and poor innocent children. He might 
have had bread, beer, bed, character, coats, coals. He might 
have nestled in our little island, comfortably sheltered from 
the storms of life ; but we were compelled to cast him out, and 
send him driving, lonely, perishing, tossing, starving, to sea — 
to drown. To drown 1 There be other modes of death where- 
by rogues die. Goodby, Tomkins. And so the nightcap is put 
on, and the bolt is drawn for poor T. 

Suppose we were to invite volunteers amongst our respected 
readers to send in little statements of the lies which they know 
have been told about themselves ; what a heap of correspond- 
ence, what an exaggeration of malignities, what a crackling 
bonfire of incendiary falsehoods, might we not gather together I 



104 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

And a lie once set going, having the breath of life breathed 
into it by the father of lying, and ordered to run its diabolical 

^little course, lives with a prodigious vitality. You say, "Magna 
est Veritas et prcevalebitT Psha! Great lies are as great as 
great truths, and prevail constantly, and day after day. Take 
an instance or two out of my own little budget. I sit near a 
gentleman at dinner, and the conversation turns upon a certain 
anonymous literary performance which at the time is amusing 
the town. '' Oh," says the gentleman, "everybody knows who 
wrote that paper : it is Momus's.'' I was a young author at 
the time, perhaps proud of my bantling: " I beg your pardon,'' 
I say, "it was written by your humble servant.'' " Indeed !" 
was all that the man replied, and he shrugged his shoulders, 
turned his back, and talked to his other neighbor. I never 
heard sarcastic incredulity more finely conveyed than by that 
"Indeed." "Impudent liar," the gentleman's face said, as 
clear as face could speak. Where was Magna Veritas, and how 
did she prevail then t She lifted up her voice, she made her 
appeal, and she w^as kicked out of court. In New York I read 
a newspaper criticism one day (by an exile from our shores who 
has taken up his abode in the Western Republic), commenting 

•^upon a letter of mine which had appeared in a contemporary 
volume, and wherein it was stated that the WTiter w^as a lad in 
such and such a year, and, in point of fact, I was, at the period 
spoken of, nineteen years of age. " Falsehood, Mr. Rounda- 
bout," says the noble critic : " you were then not a lad ; you 
were then six-and-twenty years of age." You see he knew 
better than papa and mamma and parish register. It was 
easier for him to think and say I lied, on a twopenny matter 
connected with my own affairs, than to imagine he was mis- 
taken. Years ago, in a time when we were very mad w^ags, Arc- 
turus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the lan- 
guage. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said w^e 
were born in China. We were two to one. We spoke the man- 
darin dialect with perfect fluency. We had the company with 
us ; as in the old, old days, the squeak of the real pig was voted 
not to be so natural as the squeak of the sham pig. O Arc- 
turns, the sham pig squeaks in our streets now to the applause 
of multitudes, and the real porker grunts unheeded in his sty ! 

I once talked for some little time with an amiable lady: it 
was for the first time : and I saw an expression of surprise on 
her kind face, which said as plainly as face could say, " Sir, do 
you know that up to this moment I have had a certain opinion 
of you, and that I begin to think I have been mistaken or mis« 



I 



ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE, 



lOS 



led ? '' I not only know that she had heard evil reports of me, 
but I know who told her — one of those acute fellows, my dear 
brethren, of whom we spoke in a previous sermon, who has 
found me out — found out actions which I never did, found out 
thoughts and sayings which I never spoke, and judged me 
accordingly. Ah, my lad ! have I found you out ? O risum 
teneatis. Perhaps the person I am accusing is no more guilty 
than I. 

How comes it that the evil which men say spreads so widely 
and lasts so long, whilst our good, kind words don't seem some- 
how to take root and bear blossom ? Is it that in the stony 
hearts of mankind these pretty flowers can't find a place to 
grow ? Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas 
praise of one's neighbor is by no means lively hearing. An 
acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard 
and cayenne pepper, excites the appetite ; whereas a slice of 
cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat. 

Now, such being the case, my dear worthy Mrs. Candor, in 
whom I know there are a hundred good and generous qualities : 
it being perfectly clear that the good things w^hich we say of our 
neighbors don't fructify, but somehow perish in the ground 
where they are dropped, whilst the evil words are wafted by 
all the winds of scandal, take root in all soils, and flourish 
amazingly — seeing, I say, that this conversation does not give 
us a fair chance, suppose we give up censoriousness altogether, 
and decline uttering our opinions about Brown, Jones, and 
Robinson (and Mesdames B., J., and R.) at all. We may be 
mistaken about every one of them, as, please goodness, those 
anecdote-mongers against whom I have uttered my meek pro- 
test have been mistaken about me. We need not go to the 
extent of saying that Mrs. Manning was an amiable creature, 
much misunderstood ; and Jack Thurtell a gallant, unfortunate 
fellow, not near so black as he was painted ; but we will try and 
avoid personalities altogether in talk, won't we ? We will range 
the fields of science, dear madam, and communicate to each 
other the pleasing results of our studies. We will, if you please, 
examine the infinitesimal wonders of nature through the micro- 
scope. We will cultivate entomology. We will sit with our 
arms round each other's waists on the pons asinorum, and see 
the stream of mathematics flow beneath. We will take refuge 
in cards, and play at ** beggar my neighbor," not abuse my 
neighbor. We wiU'go to the Zoological Gardens and talk freely 
about the gorilla and his kindred, but not talk about people who 
can talk in their turn. Suppose we praise the High Church ? 



lo6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

we offend the Low Church. The Broad Church ? High and 
Low are both offended. What do you think of Lord Derby as 
a politician ? And what is your opinion of Lord Palmerston ? 
If you please, will you play me those lovely variations of " In 
my cottage near a wood ? " It is a charming air (you know it 
in French, I suppose? Ah I te dirai-je maman/) and was a 
favorite with poor Marie Antoinette. I say "poor,'' because I 
have a right to speak with pity of a sovereign who was renowned 
for so much beauty and so much misfortune. But as for giving 
any opinion on her conduct, saying that she was good or bad, 
or indifferent, goodness forbid ! We have agreed we will not 
be censorious. Let us have a game at cards — at ecarte^ if you 
please. You deal. I ask for cards. I lead the deuce of 
clubs. * * * 

What ? there is no deuce ! Deuce take it ! What ? People 
will go on talking about their neighbors, and won't have their 
mouths stopped by cards, or ever so much microscopes and 
aquariums ? Ah, my poor dear Mrs. Candor, I agree with you. 
By the way, did you ever see anything like Lady Godiva 
Trotter's dress last night? People will go on chattering, 
although we hold our tongues ; and, after all, my good soul, 
what will their scandal matter a hundred years hence ? 



SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. 

Not long since, at a certain banquet, I had the good fortune 
to sit by Doctor Polymathesis, who knows everything, and who, 
about the time when the claret made its appearance, mentioned 
that old dictum of the grumbling Oxford Don, that "All 
, Claret would be port if it could T' Imbibing a bumper of one 
or the other not ungrateful l3r, I thought to myself, " Here surely, 
Mr. Roundabout, is a good text for one of your reverence's 
sermons." Let us apply to the human race, dear brethren, 
what is here said of the vintages of Portugal and Gascony, and 
we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how many clarets as- 
pire to the ports in their jft^ay ; how most men and women of our 
acquaintance, how we ourselves, are Aquitanians giving our- * 
selves Lusitanian airs ; how we wish to Have credit for being 
stronger, braver, more beautiful, more worthy than we really 
are. 



SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE, 



107 



Nay, the beginning of this hypocrisy — a desire to excel, a 
desire to be hearty, fruity, generous, strength-imparting — is a 
virtuous and noble ambition ; and it is most difficult for a man 
in^his own case, or his neighbor's, to say at what point this 
ambition transgresses the boundary of virtue, and becomes 
vanity, pretence, and self-seeking. You are a poor man, let us 
say, showing a bold face to adverse fortune, and wearing a confi- 
dent aspect. Your purse is very narrow, but you owe no man 
a penny ; your means are scanty, but your wife's gown is decent ; 
your old coat well brushed ; your children at a good school ; 
you grumble to no one ; ask favors of no one ; truckle to no 
neighbors on account of their superior rank, or (a worse, and a 
meaner, and a more common crime still) envy none for their 
better fortune. To all outward appearances you are as well to 
do as your neighbors, who have thrice your mcome. There 
may be in this case some little mixture of pretension in your life 
and behavior. You certainly do put on a smiling face whilst 
fortune is pinching you. Your wife and girls, so smart and 
neat at evening-parties, are cutting, patching, and cobbling all 
day to make both ends of life's haberdashery meet. You give 
a friend a bottle of wine on occasion, but are content yourself 
with a glass of whiskey-and-water. You avoid a cab, saying that 
of all things you like to walk home after dinner (v/hich you 
know, my good friend, is a fib). I grant you that in this 
scheme of life there does enter ever so little hypocrisy ; that 
this claret is loaded, as it were ; but your desire to fortify your- 
self is amiable, is pardonable, is perhaps honorable : and were 
there no other hypocrisies than yours in the world we should 
be a set of worthy fellows ; and sermonizers, moralizers, satiri- 
zers, w^ould have to hold their tongues, and go to some other 
trade to get a living. 

But you know you will step over that boundary line of 
virtue and modesty, into the district Vv-here humbug and vanity 
begin, and there the moralizer catches you and makes an exam- 
ple of you. For instance, in a certain novel in another place my 
friend Mr. Talbot Twysden is mentioned — a man w^hom you 
and I know to be a wretched ordinaire, but who persists in 
treating himself as if he was the finest '20 port. In our Britain 
there are hundreds of men like him ; forever striving to swell 
beyond their natural size, to strain beyond their natural 
strength, to step beyond their natural stride. Search, search 
within your own w^aistcoat, dear brethren — yoti know in your 
hearts, which of your ordinaire qualities you would pass off, 
and fain consider as first-rate port. And why not you yourself, 



1 08 ROUArDABO UT PA PERS, 

Mr. Preacher ? says the congregation. Dearly beloved, neither 
in nor out of this pulpit do I profess to be bigger, or cleverer, 
or wiser, or better than any of you. A short while since, a 
certain Reviewer announced that I gave myself great preten- 
sions as a philosopher. I a philosopher ! I advance preten- 
sions] My dear Saturday friend. And you ? Don't you teach 
everj-thing to everybody 1 and punish the naughty boys if they 
don't learn as you bid them ? You teach poHtics to Lord John 
and Mr. Gladstone. You teach poets how to write ; painters, 
how to paint; gentlemen, manners ; and opera-dancers, how to 
pirouette. I was not a little amused of late by an instance of 
the modesty of our Saturday friend, who, more Athenian than 
the Athenians, and a propos of a Greek book by a Greek author, 
sat down and gravely showed the Greek gentleman how to 
write his own language. 

No, I do not, as far as I know, try to be port at all ; but 
offer in these presents, a sound genuine ordinaire, at i8i". per 
doz. let us say, grown on my own hill-side, and offered de bo?i 
cceur to those who will sit down under my tonnelU, and have a 
half-hour's drink and gossip. It is none of your hot porto, my 
friend. I know there is much better and stronger liquor else- 
where. Some pronounce it sour : some say it is thin ; some 
that it has wofully lost its flavor. This may or may not be 
true. There are good and bad years ; years that surprise 
everybody ; years of which the produce is small and bad, or 
rich and plentiful. But if my tap is not genuine it is naught, 
and no man should give himself the trouble to drink it. I do 
not even say that I would be port if I could ; knowing that 
port (by which I would imply much stronger, deeper, richer, 
and more durable liquor than my vineyard can furnish) i^ not 
relished by all palates, or suitable to all heads. We will as- 
sume then, dear brother, that you and I are tolerably modest 
people ; and, ourselves being thus out of the question, proceed 
to show how pretentious our neighbors are, and how very many 
of them would be port if they could. 

Have you never seen a small man from college placed 
amongst great folk, and giving himself the airs of a man of 
fashion ? He goes back to his common room with fond remi- 
niscences of Ermine Castle or Strawberry Hall. He writes to 
the dear countess, to say that dear Lord Lollypop is getting 
on very well at St. Boniface, and that the accident which he 
met with in a scufifle with an inebriated bargeman only showed 
his spirit and honor, and will not permanently disfigure his 
lordship's nose. He gets his clothes from dear Lollypop's 



SMALL-BEER CHRONLCLE, 109 

London tailor, and wears a mauve or magenta tie when he 
rides out to see the hounds. A love of fashionable people is a 
weakness, I do not say of all, but of some tutors. Witness 
that Eton tutor t'other day, who intimated that in Cornhill we 
could not understand the perfect purity, delicacy, and refine- 
ment of those genteel families who sent their sons to Eton. 

usher, mon ami! Old Sam Johnson, who, too, had been an 
usher in his early life, kept a little of that weakness always. 
Suppose Goldsmith had knocked him up at three in the morn- 
ing and proposed a boat to Greenwich, as Topham Beauclerc 
and his friend did, w^ould he have said, " What, my boy, are 
you for a frolic? I'm with you!" and gone and put on his 
clothes ? Rather he would have pitched poor Goldsmith down 
stairs. He would have liked to be port if he could. Of course 
we wouldn't. Our opinion of the Portugal grape is known. 
It grows very high, and is very sour, and we don't go for that 
kind of grape at all. 

*^ I was walking with Mr. Fox " — and sure this anecdote 
comes very pat after the grapes — '' I was walking with Mr. 
Fox in the Louvre," says Benjamin West (apud some paper I 
have just been reading), " and I remarked how many people 
turned round to look at me. This shows the respect of the 
French for the fine arts." This is a curious instance of a very 
small claret indeed, which imagined itself to be port of the 
strongest body. There are not many instances of a faith so 
deep, so simple, so satisfactory as this. I have met many 
who would like to be port ; but with few of the Gascon sort, 
who absolutely believed they were port. George III. believed 
in West's port, and thought Reynolds' overrated stuff. When 

1 saw West's pictures at Philadelphia, I looked at them with 
astonishment and awe. Hide, blushing glory, hide your head 
under your old nightcap. O immortality ! is this the end of you ? 
Did any of you, my dear brethren, ever try and read " Black- 
more's Poems," or the ** Epics of Baour-Lormian," or the 
" Henriade," or — what shall we say? — Pollok's "Course of 
Time ! " They were thought to be more lasting than brass by 
some people, and where are they now? And <97^r masterpieces 
of literature — our ports — that, if not immortal, at any rate are 
to last their fifty, their hundred years — oh, sirs, don't you think 
a very small cellar will hold them ? 

Those poor people in brass, on pedestals, hectoring about 
Trafalgar Square and that neighborhood, don't you think many 
of them — apart even from the ridiculous execution — cut rather a 
ridiculous figure, and that we are too eager to set up our ordin- 



no ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

aire heroism and talent for port ? A Duke of Wellington or two 1 
will grant, though even of these idols a moderate supply will be 
sufficient. Some years ago a famous and witty French critic was 
in London, with whom I walked the streets. I am ashamed to 
say that I informed him (being in hopes th^t he was about to 
write some papers regarding the manners and customs of this 
country) that all the statues he saw represented the Duke of 
Wellington That on the arch opposite Apsley House ? the 
Duke in a cloak, and cocked-hat, on horseback. That behind 
Apsley House in an airy fig-leaf costume } the Duke again. 
That in Cockspur Street ? the Duke with a pigtail — and so on. 
I showed him an army of Dukes. There are many bronze 
heroes who after a few years look already as foolish, awkward, 
and out of place as a man, say at Shoolbred's or Swan and 
Edgar's. For example, those three Grenadiers in Pall Mall, 
w^ho have been up only a few months, don't you pity those 
unhappy household troops, who have to stand frowning and 
looking fierce there ; and think they would like to step down 
and go to barracks ? That they fought very bravely there is 
no doubt ; but so did the Russians fight very bravely ; and the 
French fight very bravely ; and so did Colonel Jones and the 
99th, and Colonel Brown and the looth ; and I say again that 
ordinaire should not give itself port airs, and that an honest 
ordinaire would blush to be found swaggering so. I am sure 
if you could consult the Duke of York, who is impaled on his 
column between the two clubs, and ask his late Royal High- 
ness whether he thought he ought to remain there, he would 
say no. A brave, worthy man, not a braggart or boaster, to be 
put upon that heroic perch must be painful to him. Lord 
George Bentinck, I suppose, being in the midst of the family 
park in Cavendish Square, may conceive that he has a right to 
remain in his place. But look at William of Cumberland, with 
his hat cocked over his eye, prancing behind Lord George on 
his Roman-nosed charger j he, depeild on it, would be for get- 
ting off his horse if he had the permission. He did not hesi- 
tate about trifles, as we know ; but he was a very truth-telling 
and honorable soldier : and as for heroic rank and statuesque 
dignity, I would wager a dozen of '20 port against a bottle of 
pure and sound Bordeaux, at \Zs. per dozen (bottles included), 
that he never would think of claiming any such absurd distinc- 
tion. They have got a statue of Thomas Moore at Dublin, I 
hear. Is he on horseback ? Some men should have, say, a 
fifty years' lease of glory. After a while some gentlemen now 
in brass should go to the melting furnace, and reappear in som« 



SMALL-BEER CHRONICLE. HI 

Other gentleman's shape. Lately I saw that Melville column 
rising over Edinburgh ; come, good men and true, don't you 
feel a little awkward and uneasy when you walk under it? 
Who was this to stand in heroic places ? and is yon the man , 
whom Scotchmen most delight to honor ?,^ I must own deferen- 
tially that there is a tendency in North Britain to over-esteem 
its heroes. Scotch ale is very good and strong, but it is n'ot 
stronger than all the other beer in the world, as some Scottish 
patriots would insist. When there has been a war, and stout 
old Sandy Sansculotte returns home from India or Crimea, 
what a bagpiping, shouting, hurraying, and self-glorification 
takes place round about him ! You would fancy, to hear Mc 
Orator after dinner, that the Scotch had fought all the battles, 
killed all the Russians, Indian rebels, or what not. In Cupar- 
Fife, there's a little inn called the *' Battle of Waterloo," and 
what do you think the sign is 1 (I sketch from memory, to be 
sure.) " The Battle of Waterloo " is one broad Scotchman 
laying about him with a broadsword. Yes, yes, my dear Mac, 
you are wise, you are good, you are clever, you are handsome, 
you are brave, you are rich, &c. \ but so is Jones over the 
border. Scotch salmon is good, but there are other good fish 
in the sea. .1 once heard a Scotchman lecture on poetr}^ in 
London. Of course the pieces he selected were chiefly by 
Scottish authors, and Walter Scott was his favorite poet. I 
whispered to my neighbor, who was a Scotchman (by the way, 
the audience were almost all Scotch, and the room was All- 
Mac's — \ beg your pardon, but I couldn't help it, I really 
couldn't help it)— *'The professor has said the best poet was a 
Scotchman : I wager that he will say the worst poet v.as a 
Scotchman, too." And sure enough that worst poet, when he 
made his appearance, was a Northern Briton. 

And as we are talking of bragging, and I am on my travels, 
can I forget one mighty republic — one — two mighty republics, 
where pef)ple are notoriously fond of passing off their claret for 
port 1 I am ver}^ glad, for the sake of a kind friend, that there 
is a great and influential party in the United, and, I trust, in 
the Confederate States,"* who believe that Catawba wine is 
better than the best Champagne. Opposite that famous old 
White House at Washington, whereof I shall ever have a grate- 
ful memor}^, they have set up an equestrian statue of General 
Jackson, by a self-taught American artist of no inconsiderable 
genius and skiil. At an evening-p^rty a member of Congress 
seized me in a corner of the room, and asked me if I did not 

*^ritten in July, 1861. 



1 1 2 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

think this was the finest equestrian statue in the world 1 How 
was I to deal with this plain question, put to me in a corner? 
I was bound to reply, and accordingly said that I did not think 
it was the finest statue in the world. **Well, sir,'' says the 

member of Congress, "but you must remember that Mr. M 

had never seen a statue when he made this 1" I suggested 

that to see other statues might do Mr. M no harm. Nor 

was any man more willing to own his defects, or more modest 
regarding his merits, than the sculptor himself, whom I met 
subsequently. But oh ! what a charming article there was in a 
Washington paper next day about the impertinence of criticism 
and offensive tone of arrogance which Englishmen adopted 
towards men and works of genius in America ! " Who was 
this man, w^ho,'' &c., &c. t The Washington writer was angry 
because I would not accept this American claret as the finest 
port- wine in the world. Ah me ! It is about blood and not 
wine that the quarrel now is, and who shall fortell its end t 

How much claret that would be port if it could is handed 
about in every society ! In the House of Commons what small- 
beer orators try to pass for strong ? Stay : have 1 a spite 
against any one ? It is a fact that the wife of the Member for 
Bungay has left off asking rne and Mrs. Roundabout to her 
evening-parties. Now is the time to have a slap at him. I 
will say that he was always overrated, and that now he is 
lamentably falling off even from what he has been. I will 
back the member for Stoke Poges against him ; and show that 
the dashing young member for Islington is a far sounder man 
than either. Have I any little literary animosities ? Of course 
not. Men of letters never have. Otherwise, how I could 
serve out a competitor here, make a face over his works, and 
show that this would-be port is very meagre ordinaire indeed ! 
Nonsense, man ! Why so squeamish t Do they spare you f 
Now you have the whip in your hand, won't you' lay (3n .^ You 
used to be a pretty whip enough as a young man, and liked it 
too. Is there no enemy who would be the better for a little 
thonging ? No. I have militated in former times, not with- 
out glory ; but I grow peaceable as I grow old. And if I have 
a literary enemy, why, he will probably write a book ere long, 
and then it will be his turn, and my favorite review will be 
down upon him. 

My brethren, these sermons are professedly short ; for I have 
that opinion of my dear congregation, which leads me to think 
that were I to preach at great length they would yawn, stamp, 
make noises, and perhaps go straightway out of church ; and yet 



OGRES. 113 

with this text I protest I could go on for hours. What multi- 
tudes of men, what multitudes of women, my dears, pass off 
their ordinaire for port, their small beer for strong ! In litera- 
ture, in politics, in the army, the navy, the church, at the bar, 
in the world, what an immense quantity of cheap liquor is made 
to do service for better sorts ! Ask Sergeant Roland his 
opinion of Oliver, Q. G. *^ Ordinaire, my good fellow, ordinaire, 
with a port-wine label ! " Ask Oliver his opinion of Roland. 
" Never was a man so overrated by the world and by himself.'' 
Ask Tweedledumski his opinion of Tweedledeestein's perform- 
ance. *^ A quack, my tear sir i an ignoramus, I geef you my vort ? 
He gombose an opera ! He is not fit to make dance a bear ! " 
Ask Paddington and Buckmister, those two '^ swells " of 
fashion, what they think of each other ? They are notorious 
ordinaire. You and I remember when they passed for very 
small wine, and now how high and mighty they have become. 
What do you say to Tomkins' sermons ? Ordinaire, trying to 
go down as orthodox port, and very meagre ordinaire too ! To 
Hopkins' historical works ? — to Pumpkin's poetry ? Ordinaire, 
ordinaire again — thin, feeble, overrated ; and so down the 
whole list. And when we have done discussing our men 
friends, have we not all the women ? Do these not advance 
absurd pretensions t Do these never give themselves airs t 
With feeble brains, don't they often set up to be esprits forts ? 
Don't they pretend to be women of fashion, and cut their bet- 
ters ? Don't they try and pass off their ordinary-looking girls 
as beauties of the first order .? Every man in his circle knows 
women who give themselves airs, and to whom we can apply 
the port-wine simile. 

Come, my friends. Here is enough of ordinaire and port 
for to-day. My bottle has run out. Will anybody have any 
more ? Let us go up stairs and get a cup of tea from the 
ladies. 



OGRES. 

I BARE say the reader has remarked that the upright and 
independent vowel, which stands in the vowel-list between E and 
O, has formed the subject of the main part of these essays. 
How does that vowel feel this morning ? — fresh, good-humored, 



114 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



and lively ? The Roundabout lines, which fall from this pen, 
are correspondingly brisk and cheerful. Has anything, on the 
contrar}^, disagreed with the vowel ? Has its rest been dis- 
turbed, or was yesterday's dinner too good, or yesterday's wine 
not good enough.? Under such circumstances, a xlarkening, 
misanthropic tinge, no doubt, is cast upon the paper. The 
jokes, if attempted, are elaborate and dreary. The bitter 
temper breaks out. That sneering manner is adopted, w^hich 
you know, and which exhibits itself so especially when the 
writer is speaking about women. A moody carelessness comes 
over him. He sees no good in anybody or thing : and treats 
gentlemen, ladies, history, and things in general, with a like 
gloomy flippancy. Agreed. When the vowel in question is in 
that mood, if you like airy gayety and tender gushing benevo- 
lence — if you want to be satisfied with yourself and the rest of 
your fellow-beings ; I recommend you, my dear creature, to go 
to some other shop in Cornhill, or turn to some other article. 
There are moods in the mind of the vowel of which w^e are 
speaking, wdien it is ill conditioned and captious. Who always 
keeps good health, and good humor ? Do not philosophers 
grumble ? Are not sages sometimes out of temper ? and do 
not angel-women go off in tantrums ? To-day my mood is 
dark. I scowl as I dip my pen into the inkstand. 

Here is the day come round— for everything hei^ is done 
with the utmost regularity : — intellectual labor, sixteen hours ; 
meals, thirty-two minutes ; exercise, a hundred and forty-eight 
minutes; conversation with the family, chiefly literary, and 
about the housekeeping, one hour and four minutes ; sleep, 
three hours and fifteen minutes (at the end of the month, when 
the Magazine is complete, I own I take eight minutes more); 
and the rest for the toilette and the world. Well, I say, the 
Roundabout Paper Day\y€\x\g come, and the subject long since 
settled in my mind, an excellent subject — a most telling, lively, 
and popular subject — I go to breakfast determined to finish 
that meal in 9^ minutes, as usual, and then retire to my desk 
and w^ork, when — oh, provoking ! — here in the paper is the 
very subject treated, on which I was going to write ! Yester- 
day another paper which I saw treated it — and of course, as I 
need not tell you, spoiled it. Last Saturday, another paper 
had an article on the subject ; perhaps you m.ay guess what it 
was — but I won't tell you. Only this is true, my favorite sub- 
ject, which was about to make the best paper v;e have had for 
a long time : my bird, my game that I w^as going to shoot and 
serve up with such a delicate sauce, has been found by other 



OGRES, 115 

sportsmen ; and pop, pop, pop, a half-dozen of guns have 
banged at it, mangled it, and brought it down. 

" And can't you take some other text?'' say you. All this 
is mighty well. But if you have set your heart on a certain 
dish io^ dinner, be it cold boiled veal, or what you will, and 
they bring you turtle and venison, don't you feel disappointed ? 
During your walk you have •been making up your mind that 
that cold meat, with moderation and a pickle, will be a very 
sufficient dinner : you have accustomed your thoughts to it ; 
and here, in place of it, is a turkey, surrounded by coarse 
sausages, or a reeking pigeon-pie or a fulsome roast-pig. I 
have known many a good and kind man made furiously angry 
by such a confrete77ips, I have known him to lose his temper, 
call his wife and servants names, and a w^hole household made 
miserable. If, then, as is notoriously the case, it is too danger- 
ous to baulk a man about his dinner, how much more about his 
article ? I came to my meal with an ogre-like appetite and 
gusto. Fee, faw, fum ! Wife, where is that tender little 
Princekin ? Have you trussed him, and did ^^ou stuff him 
nicely, and have you taken care to baste him and do him, not 
too brown, as I told you ? Quick ! I am hungry ! I begin to 
whet my knife, to roll my eyes about, and roar and clap my 
huge chest like a gorilla ; and then my poor Ogrina has to tell 
me that the little princes have all run away, whilst she was in 
the kitchen, making the paste to bake them in ! I pause in 
the description. I won't condescend to report the bad lan- 
guage, w^hich you know must ensue, when an ogre, w^hose mind 
is ill regulated, and w^hose habits of self-indulgence are notori- 
ous, finds himself disappointed of his greedy hopes. What 
treatment of his wife, what abuse and brutal behavior to his 
children, who, though ogriJlons, are children ! My dears, you 
may fancy, and need not ask my delicate pen to describe, the 
language and behavior of a vulgar, coarse, greedy, large man 
with an immense mouth and teeth, which are too frequently 
employed in the gobbling and crunching of raw man's meat. 

And in this circuitous way you see I have reached my pres- 
ent subject, which is Ogres. You fancy they are dead or only 
fictitious characters — mythical representatives of strength, 
cruelty, stupidity, and lust for blood .^ Though they haa 
seven-leagued boots, you remember all sorts of little w^hipping- 
snapping Tom Thumbs used to elude and outrun them. They 
were so stupid that they gave in to the most shallow ambuscades 
and artifices : witness that well-known ogre, who, because Jack 
cut open the hasty-pudding, instantly ripped open his own 



1 16 ROUiYDABOUr PAPERS. 

Stupid waistcoat and interior. They were cruel, brutal, dis« 
gusting, with their sharpened teeth, immense knives, and roar- 
ing voices ! but they always ended by being overcome by little 
Tom Thumbkins, or some other smart little champion. 

Yes ; they were conquered in the end there is no. doubt. 
They pkmged headlong (and uttering the most frightful bad 
language) into some pit where Jack came with his smart couteau 
de chasse and whipped their brutal heads off. They would be 
going to devour maidens, 

" But ever when it seemed 

Their need was at the sorest, 
A knight, in armor bright, 

Came riding through the forest." 

And down, alter a combat, would go the brutal persecutor, 
with a lance through his midriff. Yes, I say, this is very true 
and well. But you remember that round the ogre's cave the 
ground was covered, for hundreds and hundreds of yards, with 
the bo7ies of the victi77is whom he had lured into the castle. Many 
^knights and m^ids came to him and perished under his knife 
and teeth. Were dragons the same as ogres ? monsters dwell- 
ing in caverns, whence they rushed, attired in plate armor, 
wielding pikes and torches, and destroying stray passengers 
who passed by their lair 1 Monsters, brutes, rapacious tyrants, 
ruffians, as they were, doubtless they ended by being overcome. 
But, before they w^ere destroyed, they did a deal of mischief. 
The bones round their caves were countless. They had sent 
many brave souls to Hades, before their own fled, howling out 
of their rascal carcasses, to the same place of gloom. 

There is no greater mistake than to suppose that fairies, 
champions, distressed damsels, and by consequence ogres, have 
ceased to exist. It may not be ogreable to them (pardon the 
horrible pleasantry, but as I am writing in the solitude of my 
chamber, I am grinding my teeth — yelling, roaring, and curs- 
ing — brandishing my scissors and paper-cutter, and, as it were, 
have become an ogre). I say there is no greater mistake than 
to suppose that ogres have ceased to exist. We all know 
ogres. Their caverns are round us, and about us. There are the 
castles of several ogres within a mile of the spot where I write. 
I think some of them suspect I am an ogre myself. I am not; 
but I know they are. I visit them. I don't mean to say that 
they take a cold roast prince out of the cupboard, and have a 
cannibal feast before inc. But I see the bones lying about the 
roads to their houses, and in the areas and gardens. Polite- 
ness, of course, prevents me from making any remarks ; but I 



OGRES. 



117 



know them well enough. One of the ways to know em is to 
watch the scared looks of the ogres' wives and children. They 
lead an awful life. They are present at dreadful cruelties. In 
their excesses those ogres will stab about, and kill not only 
strangers who happen to call in and ask a night's lodging, 
but they will outrage, murder, and chop up their own kin. We 
all know ogres, I say, and have been in their dens often. It 
is not necessary that ogres who ask you to dine should oiler 
their guests the peculiar dish which they like. They cannot 
always get a Tom Thumb family. They eat mutton and beef 
too ; and I dare say even go out to tea, and invite you to drink 
it. But I tell you there are numbers of them going about in 
the world. And now you have my word for it, and this little 
hint, it is quite curious what an interest society may be made 
to have for you, by your determining to find out the ogres you 
meet there. 

What does the man mean ? says Mrs. Downright, to whom a. 
joke is a very grave thing. I mean, madam, that in the com- 
pany assembled in your genteel drawing-room, who bow here 
and there and smirk in white neck-cloths, you receive men who 
elbow through life successfully enough, but who are ogres in 
private : men wicked, false, rapacious, flattering ; cruel hec- 
tors at home, smiling courtiers abroad ; causing wives, children, 
servants, parents, to tremble before them, and smiling and bow- 
ing as they bid strangers welcome into their castles. I say, there 
are men wdio have crunched the bones of victim after victim ; in 
whose closets lie skeletons picked frightfully clean. When these 
ogres come out into the world, you don't suppose they show 
their knives, and their great teeth ? A neat simple white neck- 
cloth, a merry rather obsequious manner, a cadaverous look, 
perhaps, nov and again, and a rather dreadful grin ; but I 
know ogres very considerably respected : and when you hint 
to such and such a man, " My dear sir, Mr. Sharpus, whom 
you appear to like, is, I assure you, a most dreadful cannibal /' 
the gentleman cries, *' Oh, psha, nonsense ! Dare say not so 
black as he is painted. Dare say not worse than his neighbors." 
We condone everything in this country — private treason, false- 
hood, flattery, cruelty at home, roguery, and double dealing. 
What ! Do you mean to say in your acquaintance you don't 
know ogres guilty of countless crimes of fraud and force, and 
that knowing them you don't shake hands with them ; dine 
with them at your table ; and meet them at their own t De- 
pend upon it, in the time when there were real live ogres in real 
caverns or castles, gobbling up real knights and virgins, when 



1 18 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

they went into the world — =the neighboring market-town, let us 
say, or earl's castle-*-though their nature and reputation were 
pretty well known, their notorious foibles were never alluded 
to. You would say, " What, Blunderbore, my boy ! How do 
you do ? How well and fresh ^'ou look 1 Wl^at's the receipt 
you have for keeping so young and rosy ? " And your wife 
would softly ask after Mrs. Blunderbore and the dear children. 
Or it would be, " My dear Humguffin ! try that pork. It is 
home-bred, home-fed, and, I promise you, tender. Tell me if 
you think it is as good as yours ? John, a glass of Burgundy 
to Colonel Humguffin ! '' You don't suppose there would be 
any unpleasant allusions to disagreeable home-reports regard- 
ing Humguffin's manner of furnishing his larder ? I say we 
all of us know ogres. We shake hands and dine with ogres. 
And if inconvenient moralists tell us we are cowards for our 
pains, we turn round v/ith a tu quoqiie^ or say that we don't 
meddle with other folk's affairs j that people are much less 
black than they are painted, and so on. What! Won't half 
the county go to Ogreham Castle ? W^on't some of the clergy 
say grace at dinner ? Won't the mothers bring their daughters 
to dance with the young Rawheads ? And if Lady Ogreham 
happens to die — I won't say to go the way of all flesh, that is 
too revolting — I say if Ogreham is a widower, do you aver, on 
your conscience and honor, that mothers will not be found to 
offer their young girls to supply the lamented lady's place ? 
How stale this misanthropy is ! Something must have dis- 
agreed with this cynic. Yes, my good woman. I dare say you 
would like to call another subject. Yes, my fine fellow ; ogre 
at home, supple as a dancing-master abroad, and shaking in 
thy pumps, and wearing a horrible grin of sham gayety to con- 
ceal thy terror, lest I should point thee out: — thou art prosper- 
ous and honored, art thou ? I say thou hast been a tyrant 
and a robber. Thou hast plundered the poor. Thou hast 
bullied the weak. Thou hast laid violent hands on the goods 
of the innocent and confiding. Thou hast made a prey of the 
meek and gentle who asked for thy protection. Thou hast 
been hard to thy kinsfolk, and cruel to thy family. Go, mon- 
ster ! Ah, when shall little Jack come and drill daylight through 
thy wicked cannibal carcase ? I see the ogre pass on, bowing 
right and left to the company ; and he gives a dreadful sidelong 
glance of suspicion as he is talking to my lord bishop in the 
corner there. 

Ogres in our days need not be giants at all. In former 
times, and in children's books, where it is necessar}^ to paint 



OGRES. lig 

your moral in such large letters that there can be no mistake 
about it, ogres are made with that enormous mouth and rate- 
iter which you know of, and with which they can swallow 
down a baby, almost without using that great knife which they 
always carry. They are too cunning nowadays. They go 
about in society, slim, small, quietly dressed, and showing no 
especially great appetite. In my own young days there used 
to be play ogres — men who would devour a young fellow in one 
sitting, and leave him without a bit of flesh on his bones. They 
were quite gentlemanlike-looking people. They got the young 
fellow into their cave. Champagne, pate-de-foie-gras, and num- 
berless good things, were handed about ; and then, having eaten, 
the young man was devoured in his turn. I believe these card 
and dice ogres have died away almost entirely as the hasty- 
pudding giants whom Tom Thumb overcame. Now, there are 
ogres in City courts who lure you into their dens. About "our 
Cornish mines I am told there are many most plausible ogres, 
who tempt you into their caverns and pick your bones there. 
In a certain newspaper there used to be lately a whole column 
of advertisements from ogres who would put on the most 
plausible, nay, piteous appearance, in order to inveigle their 
victims. You would read, '' A tradesman, established for 
seventy years in the City, and known, and much respected by 
Messrs. N. M. Rothschild and Baring Brothers, has pressing 
need for three pounds until next Saturday. He can give se- 
curity for half a million, and forty thousand pounds will be 
given for the use of the loan," and so on ; or, " An influential 
body of capitalists are about to establish a company, of which 
the business will be enormous and the profits proportionately 
prodigious. They will require a secretary, of good address 
and appearance, at a salary of two thousand per annum. He 
need not be able to write, but address and manners are abso- 
lutely necessary. As a mark of confidence in the company, he 
will have to deposit," &c. ; or, " A young widow (of pleasing 
manners and appearance) who has a pressing necessity for four 
pounds ten for three weeks, offers her Erard's grand piano 
valued at three hundred guineas ; a diamond cross of eight 
hundred pounds ; and board and lodging in her elegant villa 
near Banbury Cross, with the best references and society, in 
return for the loan." I suspect these people are ogres. There 
are ogres and ogres. Polyphemus was a great, tall, one-eyed, 
notorious ogre, fetching his victims out of a hole, and gob- 
bling them one after another. There^ could be no mistake 
about him. But so were the Sirens ogres — pretty blue-eyed 



I20 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

things, peeping at you coaxingly from out of the water, and 
singing their melodious wheedles. And the bones round their 
caves were more numerous than the ribs, skulls, and thigh- 
bones round the cavern of hulking Polypheme. 

To the castle-gates of some of these monsters up rides the 
dapper champion of the pen ; puffs boldly upon the horn which 
hangs by the chain ; enters the hall resolutely, and challenges 
the big tyrant sulking within. We defy him to combat, the 
enormous roaring ruffian ! We give him a meeting on the 
green plain before his castle. Green ? No wonder it should 
be green : it is manured with human bones. After a few grace- 
ful wheels and curvets, we take our ground. We stoop over 
our saddle. 'Tis but to kiss the locket of our lady-love's hair. 
And now the vizor is up : the lance is in rest (Gillott's iron is 
the point for me). A touch of the spur in the gallant sides of 
Pegasus, and we gallop at the great brute. 

" Cut off his ugly head, Flibbertygibbet, my squire ! '' And 
wdio are these who pour out of the castle ? the imprisoned 
maidens, the maltreated widows, the poor old hoary grand- 
fathers, who have been locked up in the dungeons these scores 
and scores of years, writhing under the tyranny of that ruffian ! 
Ah ye knights of the pen ! May honor be your shield, and 
truth tip your lances ! Be gentle to all gentle people. Be 
modest to women. Be tender to children. And as for the 
Ogre Humbug, out sword, and have at him. 



ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS WHICH I 
INTENDED TO WRITE."^ 

We have all heard of a place paved with good intentions : — • 
a place which I take to be a very dismal, useless' and unsatis- 
factory terminus for many pleasant thoughts, kindly fancies, 
gentle wishes, merry little quips and pranks, harmless jokes 
which die as it were the moment of their birth. Poor litde 
children of the brain! He was a dreary theologian who hud- 
dled you under such a melancholy cenotaph, and laid you in 
the vaults under the flagstones of Hades ! I trust that some 

*The following paper was written in 1861, after the extraordinary affray between Major 
Murray and the money-lender in a house in Northumberland Street, Strand, and subse- 
qitent to the appearance of M. Du Chaillu's book on Gorilla?. 



ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. I2i 

of the best actions we have all of us committed in our lives 
have been committed in fancy. It is not all wickedness we are 
thinking, ^ue diable ! Some of our thoughts are bad enough I 
grant you. Many a one you and I have had here below. Ah 
mercy, what a monster ! what crooked horns ! w^hat leering 
eyes ! what a flaming mouth ! what cloven feet, and what a 
hideous writhing tail ! Oh, let us fall down on our knees, repeat 
our most potent exorcisms, and overcome the brute. Spread 
your black'pinions, fly— fly to the dusky realms of Eblis, and bury 
thyself under the paving-stones of his hall, dark genie ! But 
all thoughts are not so. No — no. There are the pure : there 
are the kind : there are the gentle. There are sweet unspoken 
thanks before a fair scene of nature : at a sun-setting below a 
glorious sea ; or a moon and a host of stars shining over it : 
at a bunch of children playing in the street, or a group of flow- 
ers by the liedge-side, or a bird singing there. At a hundred 
moments or occurrences of the day good thoughts pass through 
the mind, let us trust, which never are spoken ; prayers are 
made which never are said ; and Te Deum is sung without 
church, clerk, choristers, parson or organ. Why, there's my 
enemy : who got the place I wanted ; who maligned me to the 
woman I wanted to be well with ; who supplanted me in the 
good graces of my patron. I don't say anything about the 
matter : but, my poor old enemy, in my secret mind I have 
movements of as tender charity towards you, you old scoun- 
drel, as ever I had when we were boys together at school. You 
ruffian ! do you fancy I forget that we were fond of each other t 
We are still. W^e share our toffy ; go halves at the tuck-shop ; 
do each other's exercises ; prompt each other with the word in 
construing or repetition : and tell the most frightful fibs to pre- 
vent each other from being found out. We meet each other in 
public. Ware a fight ! Get them into different parts of the 
room ! Our friends hustle round us. Capulet and Montague 
are not more at odds than the houses of Roundabout and 
WrightaboLit, let us say. It is, " My dear Mrs. Buffer, do 
kindly put yourself in the chair between those two men ! " Or, 
My dear Wrightabout, will you take that charming Lady Blanc- 
mange down to supper ? She adores your poems ; and gave 
five shillings for your autograph at the fancy fair." In like 
manner the peace-makers gather round Roundabout on his 
part : he is carried to a distant corner, and coaxed out of the 
way of the enemy with whom he is at feud. 

Wlien we meet in the Square at Verona, out flash rapiers, 
and we fall to. But in his private mind Tybalt owns that 



122 . ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

Mercutio has a rare wit, and Mercutio is sure that^his adver- 
sary is a gallant gentleman. Look at the amphitheatre yonder. 
You do not suppose those gladiators who fought and perished, 
as hundreds of spectators in that grim Circus held thumbs 
down, and cried, ''Kill, kill ! '^ — you do not suppose the com- 
batants of necessity hated each other ? No more than the 
celebrated trained bands of literary sword-and-buckler men 
hate the adversaries whom they meet in the arena. They en- 
gage at the given signal \ feint and parry ; slash, poke, rip 
each other open, dismember limbs, and hew off noses : but in 
the way of business, and, I trust, with mutual private esteem. 
For instance, I salute the warriors of the Superfine Company 
with the honors due among warriors. Here's at you, Sparta- 
cus, my lad. A hit, I acknowledge. A palpable hit! Ha! 
how do you like that poke in the eye in return ? When the 
trumpets sing truce, or the spectators are tired, we bow to the 
noble company : withdraw ; and get a cool glass of wine in our 
rendezvous des braves gladiateurs. 

By the way, I saw that amphitheatre of Verona under the 
strange light of a lurid eclipse some years ago : and I have 
been there in spirit for these twenty lines past, under a vast 
gusty awning, now with twenty thousand fellow-citizens looking 
on from the benches, now in the circus itself, a grim gladiator 
with sword and net, or a meek martyr — was I ? — brought out 
to be gobbled up by the - lions ? or a huge, shaggy, tawny lion 
myself, on whom the dogs were going to be set ? What a day 
of excitement I have had to be sure ! But I must get away 
from Verona, or who knows how much farther the Roundabout 
Pegasus may carry me ? 

We were saying, my Muse, before we dropped and perched 
on earth for a couple of sentences, that our unsaid words were 
in some limbo or other, as real as those we have uttered ; that 
the thoughts which have passed through our brains are as 
actual as any to which our tongues and pens have given cur- 
rency. For instance, besides what is here hinted at, I have 
thought ever so much more about Verona : about an early 
Christian church I saw there ; about a great dish of rice we had 
at the inn ; about the bugs there ; about ever so many more 
details of that day's journey from Milan to Venice ; about lake 
Garda, which lay on the way from Milan, and so forth. I say 
what fine things we have thought of, haven't Vv^e, all of us ? Ah, 
what a fine tragedy that was I thought of, and never wrote ! 
On the day of the dinner of the Oystermongers' Company, what 
a noble speech I thought of in the cab, and broke down — I 



ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



"3 



don^t mean the cab, but the speech. Ah, if you could but read 
some of the unwritten Roundabout Papers — how you would be 
amused ! Aha ! my friend, I catch you saying, '' Well, then, I 
wish this was unwritten with all my heart." Very good. I owe 
you one. I do confess a hit, a palpable hit. 

One day in the past month, as I was reclining on the bench 
of thought, with that ocean The Times newspaper spread before 
me, the ocean cast up on the shore at my feet two famous sub- 
jects for Roundabout Papers, and I picked up those waifs, and 
treasured them away until I could polish them and bring them 
to market. That scheme is not to be carried out. I can't 
WTite about those subjects. And though I cannot write about 
them, I may surely tell what are the subjects I am going not to 
write about. 

The first was that Northumberland Street encounter, which 
all the papers have narrated. Have any novelists of our days 
a scene and catastrophe more strange and terrible than this 
which occurs at noonday within a few yards of the greatest 
thoroughfare in Europe ? At the theatres they have a new 
name for their melo-dramatic pieces, and call them " Sensation 
Dramas." What a sensation Drama this is ! What have 
people been flocking to see at the Adelphi Theatre for the last 
hundred and fifty nights ? A woman pitched overboard out of 
a boat, and a certain Miles taking a tremendous " header," and 
bringing her to shore ? Bagatelle ! What is this compared to 
the real life-drama, of which a midday representation takes 
place just opposite the Adelphi in Northumberland Street.'* 
The brave Dumas, the intrepid Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene 
Sue, the cold-shudder-inspiring '^ Woman in White," the as- 
tounding author of the " Mysteries of the Court of London," 
never invented anything more tremendous than this. It might 
have happened to you and me. We want to borrow a little 
money. We are directed to an agent. We propose a pecuniary 
transaction at a short date. He goes into the next room, as we 
fancy, to get the bank-notes, and returns with " two vtxy pretty, 
delicate little ivor^^-handled pistols," and blows a portion of our 
heads off. After this, what is the use of being squeamish 
about the probabilities and possibilities in the writing of fic- 
tion ? Years ago I remember making merry over a play of 
Dumas, called Kean, in w^hich the " Coal-Hole Tavern " was 
represented on the Thames, with a fleet of pirate-ships moored 
alongside. Pirate-ships ? Why not ? What a cavern of terror 
was this in Northumberland Street, with its splendid furniture 
.covered with dust, its empty bottles, in the midst of which sits a 



£24 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



grim " agent/' amusing himself by firing pistols, aiming at the 
unconscious mantel-piece, or at the heads of his customers ! 

After this, what is not possible ? It is possible Hungerford 
Market is mined, and will explode some day. Mind how you 
go in for a penny ice unawares. ** Pray, step this way,'' says a 
quiet person at the door. You enter — into a back room : — a 
quiet room ; rather a dark room. *^ Pray, take your place in a 
chair." And she goes to fetch the penny ice. Malheureux ! 
The chair sinks down with you — sinks, and sinks, and sinks — a 
large wet flannel suddenly envelopes your face and throttles 
you. Need we say any more ? After Northumberland Street, 
what is improbable t Surely there is no difficulty in crediting 
Bluebeard. I withdraw my last month's opinions about ogres. 
Ogres? Why not? I protest I have seldom contemplated 
anything more terribly ludicrous than this " agent " in the dingy 
splendor of this den, surrounded by dusty ormolu and piles of 
empty bottles, firing pistols for his diversion at the mantel-piece 
unlil his clients come in ! Is pistol-practice so common in 
Northumberland Street, that it passes without notice in the 
lodging-houses there ? 

We spake anon of good thoughts. About bad thoughts ? 
Is there som^ Northumberland Street chamber in your heart 
and mine, friend : close to the every-day street of life : visited 
by daily friends : visited by people on business ; in which 
affairs are transacted ; jokes are uttered ; wine is drunk ; 
through which people come and go ; wives and children pass ; 
and in which murder sits unseen until the terrible moment when 
he rises up and kills ? A farmer, say, has a gun over the 
mantel-piece in his room where he sits at his daily meals and 
rest : caressing his children, joking with his friends, smoking 
his pipe in his calm. One night the gun is taken down ; the 
farmer goes out : and it is a murderer who comes back and 
puts the piece up and drinks by that fireside. Was he a 
murderer yesterday when he was tossing the baby on his knee, 
and when his hands were playing with his little girl's yellow 
hair ? Yesterday there was no blood on them at all : they 
were shaken by honest men : have done many a kind act in 
their time very likely. He leans his head on one of them, the 
wife comes in with her anxious looks of welcome, the children 
are prattling as they did yesterday round the father's knee at 
the fire, and Cain is sitting by the embers, and Abel lies dead 
on the moor. Think of the gulf between now and yesterday. 
Oh, yesterday 1 Oh, the days when those two loved each other 
and said their prayers side by side ! He goes to sleep, per- 



OA^ TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 125 

haps, and dreams that his brother is alive. Be true, O dream ! 
Let him live in dreams, and wake no more. Be undone, O 
crime, O crime ! But the sun rises : and the officers of con- 
science come : and yonder lies the body on the moor. I hap- 
pened to pass, and looked at the Northumberland Street house 
the other day. A few loiterers were gazing up at the dingy 
windows. A plain ordinary face of a house enough — and in a 
chamber in it one man suddenly rose up, pistol in hand, to 
slaughter another. Have you ever killed any one in your 
thoughts? Has your heart compassed any man's death.? In 
your mind, have you ever taken a brand from the altar, and 
slain your brother? How many plain ordinary faces of men 
do we look at, unknowing of murder behind those eyes ? 
Lucky for you and me, brother, that v/e have good thoughts 
unspoken. But the bad ones ? I tell you that the sight of 
those blank windows in Northumberland Street — through 
which, as it were, my mind could picture the awful tragedy 
glimmering behind — set me thinking, " Mr. Street-Preacher, 
here is a text for one of your pavement sermons. But it is too 
glum and serious. You eschew dark thoughts : and desire to 
be cheerful and merry in the main." And, such being the 
case, you see we must have no Roundabout Essay on this 
subject. 

Well, I had another arrow in my quiver. (So, you know, 
had William Tell a bolt for his son, the apple of his eye ; and 
a shaft for Gessler, in case William came to any trouble with the 
first poor little target.) And this, I must tell you, was to have 
been a rare Roundabout performance — one of the very best 
that has ever appeared in this series. It was to have con- 
tained all the deep pathos of Addison : the logical precision of 
Rabelais ; the childlike playfulness of Swift ; the manly stoi- 
cism of Sterne ; the metaphysical depth of Goldsmith ; the 
blushing modesty of Fielding ; the epigrammatic terseness of 
Walter Scott ; the uproarious humor of Sam Richardson ; and 
the gay simplicity of Sam Johnson ; — it was to have combined 
all these qualities, with some excellences of modern writers 
whom I could name : — but circumstances have occurred which 
have rendered this Roundabout Essay also impossible. 

I have not the least objection to tell you what w^as to 
have been the subject of that other admirable Roundabout 
Paper. Gracious powers ! the Dean of St. Patrick's never had 
a better theme. The paper was to have been on' the Gorillas, 
to be sure. I was going to imagine myself ta be a young 
surgeon-apprentice from Charleston, in South Carolina, who 



126 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

ran away to Cuba on account of unhappy family circumstances, 
with which nobody has the least concern ; who sailed thence to 
Africa in a large, roomy schooner with an extraordinary vacant 
space between decks. I was subject to dreadful ill treatment 
from the first mate of the ship, who, w^hen I found she was a 
slaver, altogether declined to put me on shore. I was chased 
— we were chased — by three British frigates and a seventy-four, 
which we engaged and captured ; but were obliged to scuttle 
and sink, as we could sell them in no African port : and I 
never shall forget the look of manly resignation, combined with 
considerable disgust, of the British Admiral as he walked the 
plank, after cutting off his pigtail, w^hich he handed to me, and 
which I still have in charge for his family at Boston, Lincoln- 
shire, England. 

We made the port of Bpoopoo, at the confluence of the 
Bungo and Sgglolo rivers (which you may see in SwammerdahPs 
map) on the 31st April last year. Our passage had been so 
extraordinarily rapid, owing to the continued drunkenness of 
the captain and chief officers, by which I was obliged to work 
the ship and take her in command, that we reached Bpoopoo 
six weeks before we were expected, and five before the coifres 
from the interior and from the great slave depot at Zbabblo 
were expected. Their delay caused us not a little discomfort, 
because, though we had taken the four English ships, we knew 
that Sir Byam Martin's iron-cased squadron, with the ^' Warrior,^' 
the " Impregnable,'^ the " Sanconiathon,'' and the " Berosus/' 
were cruising in the neighborhood, and might prove too much 
for us. 

It not only became necessary to quit Bpoopoo before the 
arrival of the British fleet, or the rainy season, but to get our 
people on board as soon as might be. While the chief mate, 
with a detachment of seamen, hurried forward to the Pgogo 
lake, where we expected a considerable part of our cargo, the 
second mate, with six men, four chiefs, King Fbumbo, "'an Obi 
man, and myself, went N.W. 'by W., towards King Mtoby's- 
town, where we knew many hundreds of our between-deck 
passengers were to be got together. We went down the Pdodo 
river, shooting snipes, ostriches, and rhinoceros in plenty, and 
I think a few elephants, until, by the advice of a guide, who I 
now believe was treacherous, we were induced to leave the 
Pdodo, and march N.E. by N.N. Here Lieutenant Larkins, 
who had persisted in drinking rum from morning to night, and 
thrashing me in his sober moments during the whole journey, 
died, and I have too good reason to know was eaten with much 



ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 127 

relish by the natives. At Mgoo, where there are barracoons and 
a depot for our cargo, we had no news of our expected freight ; 
Accordingly, as time pressed exceedingly, parties were despatch- 
ed in advance towards the great Washaboo lake, by w^hich the 
caravans usually come towards the coast. Here we found no 
caravan, but only four negroes down with the ague, whom I 
treated, I am bound to say, unsuccessfully, whilst we waited for 
our friends. We used to take watch and watch in front of the 
place, both to guard ourselves from attack, and get early news 
of the approaching caravan. 

At last, on the 23d September, as I w^as in advance with 
Charles Rogers, second mate, and two natives with bows and 
arrows, we were crossing a great plain skirted by a forest, when 
we saw emerging from a ravine w^hat I took to be three negroes 
— a ver}' tall one, one of a moderate size, and one quite little. 

Our native guides shrieked out some words in their lan- 
guage, of which Charles Rogers knew something. I thought 
it Avas the advance of the negroes wiiom w^e expected. ^' No ! '^ 
said Rogers (who sw^ore dreadfully in conversation), '^ it is the 
Gorillas ! " And he fired both barrels of his gun, bringing down 
the little one first, and the female afterwards. 

The male, who was untouched, gave a howl that you might 
have heard a league off ; advanced towards us as if he would 
attack us, and then turned and ran away with inconceivable 
celerity towards the wood. 

We went up towards the fallen brutes. The little one by 
the female appeared to be about two years old. It lay bleating 
and moaning on the ground, stretching out its little hands with 
movements and looks so strangely resembling human, that my 
heart sickened wdth pit}\ The female, who had been shot 
through both legs, could not move. She howled most hideously 
when I approached the little one. 

"We must be off," said Rogers, " or the whole Gorilla race 
may be dow^n upon us." " The little on6 is only shot in the 
leg," I said. "I'll bind the limb up, and w^e will carry the 
beast with us on board." 

The poor little wretch held up its leg to show it was 
wounded, and looked to me with appealing eyes. It lay quite 
still wiiilst I looked for and found the bullet, and, tearing off a 
piece of my shirt, bandaged up the wound. I was so occupied 
in this business, that I hardly heard Rogers cry " Run ! run ! '^ 
and when I looked up 

When I looked up, with a roar the most horrible I ever 
heard — a roar ? ten thousand roars — a whirling army of dark 



128 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

beings rushed by me. Rogers, who had buHied me so fright- 
fully during the voyage, and who had encouraged my fatal 
passion for play, so that I own I owed him 1500 dollars, was 
overtaken, felled, brained, and torn into ten thousand pieces ] 
and I dare say the same fate would have fallen on me, but 
that the little Gorilla, whose wound I had dressed, flung its 
arms round my neck (their arms, you know, are much longer 
than ours). And when an immense gray Gorilla, with hardly 
any teeth, brandishing the trunk of a goUyboshtree about six- 
teen feet long, came up to me roaring, the little one squeaked 
out something plaintive, which of course I could not under- 
stand ; on which suddenly the monster flung down his tree, 
squatted down on his huge hams by the side of the little pa- 
tient, and began to bellov\^ and weep. 

And now, do vou see .whom I had rescued 1 I had rescued 
the young Prince of the Gorillas, who was out walking with his 
nurse and footman. The footman had run off to alarm his 
master, and certainly I never saw a footman run faster. The 
whole army of Gorillas rushed forward to rescue their prince, 
and punish his enemies. If the King Gorilla's emotion was 
great, fancy what the Queen's mmst have been wdien she came 
up ! She arrived, on a litter, neatly enough made with wattled 
branches, on which she lay, with her youngest child, a prince 
of three weeks old. 

My little protege, with the wounded leg, still persisted in 
hugging me with its arms (I think I mentioned that they are 
longer than those of men in general), and as the poor little 
brute was immensely heavy, and the Gorillas go at a prodigious 
pace, a litter was made for us likewise ; and my thirst much 
refreshed by a footman (the same domestic who had given the 
alarm) running hand over hand up a cocoanut-tree, tearing the 
rinds off, breaking the shell on his head, and handing me the 
fresh milk in its cup. My little patient partook of a little, 
stretching out its dear little unwounded foot, with which, or 
with its hand, a Gorilla can help itself indiscriminately. Re- 
lays of large Gorillas relieved each other at the litters at 
intervals of twenty minutes, as I calculated by my watch, one 
of Jones and Bates's, of Boston, Mass., though I have been 
unable to this day to ascertain how these animals calculate 
time with such surprising accuracy. We slept for that night 
under 

And now, you see, we arrive at really the most interesting 
part of my travels in the country which I intended to visit, viz. : 
the manners and habits of the Gorillas chez eux. I give the 



ON TWO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 129 

heads of this narrative only, the full account^being suppressed 
for a reason which shall presently be given. The heads, then, 
of the chapters, are briefly as follows : — 

The author's arrival i?i the Gorilla country. Its geographical 
fositio7i, Lodgi?igs assigned to hi77i tip a gufn-tree. Constant 
attachment of the little pri?ice. His royal highness' s gratitude. 
Anecdotes of his wit^ playfulness^ and extraordi?iary precocity. 
Am offered a portion of poor Larkins for my supper, but decline 
with ho7'ror. Foot7nan brings 77ie a young crocodile : fishy but very 
palatable. Old crocodiles too tough : ditto rhinoceros. Visit the 
queen 77iother — a7i eri07ynous old Gorilla, quite white. Prescribe for 
her majesty. Afeeti7ig of Gorillas at what appears a parliame7it 
amongst them : presided over by old Gorilla i7i cocoa-7iut fibre ivig. 
Their sports. Their customs. A privileged class a7nongst them. 
Extraordinary likeness of Gorillas to people at ho77ie, both at 
Charlest07i, S. C, 77ty native place ; and Lo7idon, E7igland, which 
I have visited. Flat-nosed Gorillas and blue-nosed Gorillas ; their 
hatred, and wars betwee7i the7n. Li a part of the countf-y {its 
geographical positio7i described^ I see several 7ieg7'oes tmder Gorilla 
do7ninatio7i. Well treated by their masters. Frog-eating Gorillas 
across the Salt Lake, Bull-headed Go7'illas — their mutual hos- 
tility. Green Isla7id Gorillas. Mo7'e qua7'relso7ne tha7i the Bull- 
heads, and howl 7nuch louder. I a77i called to attend 07ie of the 
pri7icesses. Evident partiality of H. R. H. for 77ie. Jealousy 
and rage of large red-headed Gorilla. How shall I escape ? 

Ay, how indeed ? Do you wish to know ? Is your curiosity 
excited ? Well, I do know how I escaped. I could tell the 
most extraordinary adventures that happened to me. I could 
show you resemblances to people at home, that would make 
them blue with rage and you crack your sides with laughter. 
* * ^ /^ * j^^^ what is the reason I cannot write this 
paper, having all the facts before me 1 The reason is, that 
walking down St. James Street yesterday, I met a friend who 
says to me, " Roundabout my boy, have you seen your picture ? 
Here it is ! " And he pulls out a portrait, executed in photog- 
raphy, of your humble servant, as an immense and most un- 
pleasant-featured baboon, with long hairy hands, and called by 
the waggish artist " A Literar\^ Gorilla." O horror ! And now 
you see why I can't play off this joke myself, and moralize on 
the fable, as it has been narrated already de me. 

9 



I30 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 




This group of dusky children of the captivity is copied out 
of a little sketch-book which I carried in many a roundabout 
journey, and will point a moral as well as any other sketch in 
the volume. Yonder drawing was made in a* country where 
there was such hospitality, friendship, kindness shown to the 
humble designer, that his eyes do not care to look out for faults, 
or his pen to note them. How they sang ; how they laughed 
and grinned ; how they scraped, bowed, and complimented you 
and each other, those negroes of the cities of the Southern parts 
of the then United States ! My business kept me in the towns ; 
I was but in one negro-plantation village, and there were only 
women and little children, the men being out a-field. But there 
was plenty of cheerfulness in the huts, under the great trees — 
I speak of what I saw — and amidst the dusky bondsmen of the 
cities. I witnessed a curious gayety ; heard amongst the black 
• folk endless singing, shouting, and laughter ; and saw on holi- 



A J//SS/SS/PP/ BUBBLE. 



^3* 



days black gentlemen and ladies arrayed in such splendor and- 
comfort as freeborn workmen in our towns seldom exhibit 
What a grin and bow that dark gentleman performed, who was 
the porter at the colonel's, when he said, '^ You write your 
name, mas'r, else I will forgot" I am not going into the slavery 
question, I am not an advocate for '' the institution," as I know, 
inadara, by that angry toss of your head, you are about to 
declare me to be. For domestic purposes, my dear lady, it 
seemed to me about the dearest institution that can be devised. 
In a iiouse in a Southern cit}- you will find fifteen negroes doing 
the work v/hich John, the cook, the housemaid, and the help, do 
perfectly in your own comfortable London house. And these 
fifteen negroes are the pick of a family of some eighty or ninety. 
Twenty are too sick, or too old for work, let us say ; twenty too 
clumsy ; twenty are too young, and have to be nursed and 
watched by ten more.* And master has to maintain the im- 
mense crew to do the work of half a dozen willing hands. No, 
no;, let Mitchell, the exile from poor dear enslaved Ireland, 
wish for a gang of " fat niggers ; " I would as soon you should 
make me a present of a score of Bengal elephants, when I need 
but a single stout horse to pull my brougliam. 

How hospitable they were, those Southern men I In the 
North itself the welcome was not kinder, as I, who have eaten 
Northern and Southern salt, can testify. As for New Orleans, 
in spring-time, — just when the orchards w^ere flushing over with 
peach-blossoms, and the sweet herbs came to flavor the juleps 
— it seemed to me the city of the world where you can eat and 
drink the most and sufi:er the least. At Bordeaux itself, claret 
is not better to drink than at New Orleans. It was all good — 
believe an expert Robert — from the half-dollar Medoc of the 
public hotel table, to the private gentleman's choicest wine. 
Claret is, somehow, good in that gifted place at dinner, at sup- 
per, and at breakfast in the m.orning. It'is good : it is super- 
abundant — and there is nothing to pay. Find me speaking ill 
of such a country ! When I do,/^;/cr m^ pigris camp is : smother 
me in a desert, or let Mississippi or Garonne drown me i At 
that comfortable tavern on Pontchartrain we had a hoicillahaisse 
than which a better was never eaten at Marseilles ; and not the 
least headache in the morning, I give you my word ; on the con- 
traiy, you only wake w^ith a sweet refreshing thirst for claret 
and water. They say there is fever there in the autumn : but 

* This was an account given by a gentleman at Richmond of his establishment. Six 
European serv^aiits would have kept his house and stables well. *' His farm," ha said, 
" barely sufl^ed to maintain the negroes residing on it.'* 



^32 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



not in the spring-time, when the peach-blossoms blush over the 
orchards, and the sweet herbs come to flavor the juleps. 

I was bound from New Orleans Xo Saint Louis ; and our 
walk was constantly on the Levee, whence we could see a 
hundred of those huge white Mississippi steamers at their 
moorings in the river : ^' Look/' said my friend Lochlomond to 
me, as we stood one day on the quay — ''look at that post ! 
Look at that coffee-house behind it \ Sir^Jast year a steamer 
blew up in the river yonder, just where you see those men 
pulling off in the boat. By that post where you are standing a 
mule was cut in two by a fragment of the burst machinery, 
and a bit of the chimney-stove in that first-floor window of the 
coffee-house, killed a negro who was cleaning knives in the 
top-room 1 ^' I looked at the post, at the coffee-house window^ 
at the steamer in which I was going to embark, at my friend, 
with a pleasing interest not divested of melancholy. Yester- 
day, it was the mule, thinks I, who was cut in two : it may be 
€ra^ mihi. Why, in the same little sketchbook, there is a draw- 
ing of an Alabama river steamer which blew up on the very next 
voyage after that in which your humble sen^ant was on board ! 
Had I but waited another week, I might have.^ * ^ These in- 
cidents give a queer zest to the voyage down the life-stream in 
America. When our huge, tall, w^hite, pasteboard castle of a 
steamer began to work up stream, ever}^ limb in her creaked, 
and groaned, and quivered, so that you might fancy she would 
burst right off. Would she hold together, or would she split 
into X^Xi million of shivers ? O my home and children ! Would 
your humble servant's body be cut in two across yonder chain 
on the Levee, or be precipitated into yonder first floor, so as to 
damage the chest of a black man cleaning boots at the window ? 
The black man is safe foj me, thank goodn8ss> But you see 
the ^little accident might)\2N^ happened. It has happened ; and 
if to a mule, w^hy not to a more docile animal ? On our journey 
up the Mississippi, I give you my honor we were on fire three 
times, and burned our cook-room do\vm. The deck at night 
was a great firework — the chimney spouted myriads of stars 
which fell blackening on our garments, sparkling on the deck, 
or gleaming into the mighty stream through which we labored 
— the mighty yellow stream with all its snags. 

How I kept up my courage through these dangers shall 
now be narrated. The excellent landlord of the '*" Saint Charles 
Hotel,'-' when I was gomg away, begged me to accept two 
bottles of the very finest Cognac, with his compliments ; and I 
found them in my state-room with my luggage. Lochlomond 



A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE. 133 

came to see me off, and as he squeezed my hand at parting. 
'^ Roundabout," says he, the wine mayn't be very good on 
board, so I have brought a dozen-case of the Medoc which you 
liked ; " and we grasped together the hands of friendship and 
farewell. Whose boat is this pulling up to the ship ? It is our 
friend Glenlivat, who gave us the dinner on Lake Pontchar- 
train. ** Roundabout," says he, *' we have tried to do what we 
could for you, my boy ;. and it has been done de bon cxur " (I 
detect a kind tremulousness in the good fellow's voice as he 
speaks). "" I say — hem ! — the a — the wine isn't too good on 
board, so I've brought you a dozen of Medoc for your voyage, 
you know. A.nd God bless you ; and when I come to London 
in May I shall come and see you. Hallo ! here's Johnson come 
to see you off, too !-" 

As I an> a miserable sinner, when Johnson grasped my 
hand, he said, " Mr, Roundabout, you can't be sure of the 
wine on board these steamers, so I thought I would bring you 
a little case of that light claret which you liked at my house." 
Et de trois I No wonder I could face the Mississippi with so 
much courage supplied to me ! Where are you, honest friends^ 
w4io gave me of your kindness andyour cheer? May I be con- 
siderably boiled, blown up, and snagged, if I speak hard words 
of you. May claret turn sour ere 1 do ! 

Mounting the stream it chanced that w^e had very few pas- 
sengers. How far is the famous city of Memphis from New 
Orleans? I do not mean the Egyptian Memphis, but the 
American Memphis, from w^hich to the American Cairo we 
slowly toiled up the river — to the American Cairo at the conflu- 
ence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. And at Cairo we parted 
company from the boat, and from some famous and gifted fel- 
low-passengers who joined us at Memphis, and whose pictures 
v/e had seen in many cities of the South. I do not g\\^ the 
names of these remarkable people, unless, by some wondrous 
chance, inventing a name I should light upon that real one 
which some of them bore ; but if you please I will say that 
our fellow-passengers whom we took in at Memphis were no 
less personages than the Vermont Giant and the famous 
Bearded Lady of Kentucky and her son. Their pictures I 
had seen in many cities through which I travelled with my own 
little performance. I think the Vermont Giant was a trifle 
taller in his pictures than he was in life (being represented in 
the former as, at least, some two storeys high) : but the lady's 
prodigious beard received no more than justice at the hands of 
the painter ; that portion of it which I saw being really most 



134 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

black, rich, and curly — I say the portion of beard, for this 
modest or prudent woman kept I don't know how much of the 
beard covered up with a red handkerchief, from which I sup- 
pose it only emerged when she went to bed, or when she ex- 
hibited it professionally. 

The Giant, I must think, was an overrated giant. I have 
known gentlemen, not in the profession, better maae, and I 
should say taller, than the Vermont gentleman. A strange 
feeling I used to have at meals ; when, on looking round our 
little society, I saw the Giant, the Bearded Lady of Kentucky, 
the little Bearded Boy of three years old, the Captain, (this I 
think ; but at this, distance of time I wouM not like to make the 
statement on affidavit,) and the three other passengers, all 
with their knives in their mouths making play at the dinner — a 
strange feeling I say it was, and as though I was in a castle of 
ogres. But, after all, why so squeamish ? A few scores of years 
back, the finest gentlemen and ladies of Europe did the like. 
Belinda ate with her knife ; and Saccharissa had only that 
weapon, or a two-pronged fork, or a spoon, for her pease. 
Have you ever looked at Gilray's print of the Prince of Wales, 
a languid voluptuary, retiring after his meal, and noted the 
toothpick which he uses ? ^ =* =^ You are right, madam ; I 
own that the subject is revolting and terrible. I will not pursue 
it. Only — allow that a gentleman, in a shaky steamboat, on a 
dangerous river, in a far-off country, which caught fire three 
times during the voyage — (of course I mean the steamboat, not 
the country,) — seeing a giant, a voracious supercargo, a 
bearded lady, and a little boy, not three years of age, with a 
chin already quite black and curly, all plying their victuals 
down their throats with their knives — allow, madam, that in 
such a company a man had a right to feel a little nervous. I 
dont't know whether you have ever remarked the Indian 
jugglers svv^allowing their knives, or seen, as I have, a whole 
table of people performing the same trick, but if you look at 
their eyes when they do it, I assure you there is a roll in them 
which is dreadful. 

Apart from this usage, which they practise in common 
with many thousand most estimable citizens, the Vermont gen- 
tleman, and the Kentucky whiskered lady — or did I say the 
reverse ? — whichever you like, my dear sir — were quite quiet, 
modest, unassuming people. She sat working with her needle, 
if I remember right. He, I suppose, slept in the great cabin, 
which was seventy feet long at the least, nor, 1 am bound to 
say, did I hear in the night any snores or roars, such as you 



A MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE, 135 

would fancy ought to accompany the sleep of ogres. Nay, this 
giant had quite a small appetite, (unless, to be sure, he went 
forward and ate a sheep or two in private with his horrid knife 
— oh, the dreadful thought ! — but in public, I say, he had quite 
a delicate appetite,) and was also a tea-totaller. I don't re- 
member to have heard the lady's voice, though I might, not 
unnaturally, have been curious to hear it. Was her voice a 
deep, rich, magnificent bass ; or was it soft, fluty, and mild ? 
I shall never know now. Even if she comes to this country, I 
shall never go and see her, I /lave seen her, and for nothing. 

You w^ould have fancied that, as after all we were only some 
half-dozen on board, she might have dispensed with her red 
handkerchief, and talked, and eaten her dinner in comfort : 
but in covering her chin there was a kind of modesty. That 
beard was her profession : that beard brought the public to see 
her : out of her business she wished to put that beard aside as 
it were : as a barrister would wish to put i)ft his wig. I know 
some who carry theirs into private life, and wiio mistake you 
and me for jur}^-boxes when they address us : but these are not 
your modest barristers, not your true gentlemen. 

Well, I own I respected the lady for the modesty with 
which, her public business over, ^he retired into private life. 
She respected her life, and her beard. That beard having 
done its day's work, she puts it away in a handkerchief ; and 
becomes, as far as in her lies, a private ordinary person. All 
public men and women of good sense, I should think, have 
this modesty. When, for instance, in my small w^ay, poor Mrs. 
Brown comes simpering up to me, with her album in one hand, 
a pen in the other, and says, " Ho, ho, dear Mr. Roundabout, 
write us one of your amusing,'/ &c.,-&:c., my beard drops behind 
my handkerchief instantly. Wliy am I to wag my chin and 
grin for Mrs. Browai's good pleasure .? My dear madam, I 
have been making faces all day. It is my profession. I do 
my comic business with the greatest pains, seriousness, and 
trouble : and with it make, I hope, a not dishonest livelihood. 
If you ask Mons. Blondin to tea, you don't have a rope 
stretched from your garret window to the opposite side of the 
square, and request Monsieur to take his tea out on the centre 
of the rope ? I lay my hand on this waistcoat, and declare that 
not once in the course of our voyage together did I allow^ the 
Kentucky Giant to suppose I was speculating on his stature, or 
the Bearded Lady to surmise that 1 wished to peep under the 
handkerchief which muffled the lower part of her face. 

^' And the more fool you," says some cynic. (Faugh, those 



J36 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

cynics, I hate ^em !) Don't you know, sir, that a man of genius 
is pleased to have his genius recognized ; that a beauty Ukes 
to.be admired ; that an actor likes to be applauded ; that stout 
old Wellington himself was pleased, and smiled when the peo- 
ple cheered him as he passed ? Suppose you had paid some 
respectful elegant compliment to that lady ? Suppose you had 
asked that giant, if, for once, he would take anything at the 
liquor-bar? you might have learned a great deal of curious 
knowledge regarding giants and bearded ladies, about whom 
you evidently now know very little. There was that little boy 
of three years old, with a fine beard already, and his little legs 
and arms, as seen out of his little frock, covered with a dark 
down. What a queer little capering satyr ! He was quite 
good-natured, childish, rather solemn. He had a little Norval 
dress, I remember : the drollest little Norval. 

I have said the B. L. had another child. Now this was a 
little girl of some six years old, as fair and as smooth of skin, 
dear madam,_ as your own darling cherubs. She wandered 
about the great cabin quite melancholy. No one seemed to 
care for her. All the family affections v^-ere centred on Master 
Esau yonder. His little beard w^as beginning to be a little 
fortune already, whereas Miss Rosalba was of no good to the 
family. No one would pay a cent to see her little fair face. 
No wonder the poor lit^tie maid was melancholy. As I looked 
at her, I seemed to walk more and more in a fairy tale, and 
more and more in a cavern of ogres. Was this a little foundling 
whom they had picked up in some forest, where lie the picked 
bones of the queen, her tender mother, and the tough old 
defunct monarch, her father? No. Doubtless they were quite 
good-natured people, these I don't believe they were unkind 
to the little girl without the mustaches. It may have been 
only my fancy that she repined because she had a cheek no 
more bearded than a rose's. 

Would you wish your own daughter, madam, to have a 
smooth cheek, a modest air, and a gentfe feminine behavior, or 
to be— I won't say a whiskered prodigy, like this Bearded Lady 
of Kentucky — but a masculine wonder, a virago, a female per- 
sonage of more than female strength, courage, wisdom ? Some 
authors, w4io shall be nameless, are, I know, accused of depict- 
ing the most feeble, brainless, namby-pamby heroines, forever 
whimpering tears and prattling commonplaces. You would 
have the heroine of your novel so beautiful that she should 
charm the captain (or hero, whoever he may be) with her ap- 
pearance ; surprise and confound the bishop with her learning: 



A J//SS/SS/PF/ BUBBLE. 137 

outride the squire and get the brush, and, when he fell from his 
horse, whip out a lancet and bleed him ; rescue from fever and 
death the poor cottager's family whom the doctor had given 
up ; make 21 at the butts with the rifle, when the poor captain 
only scored 18 ; give him twenty in fifty at billiards and beat 
him ; and draw tears from the professional Italian people by 
her exquisite performance (of voice and violoncello) in the 
evening ; — I say, if a novelist would be popular with ladies — 
the great novel-readers of the world — this is the sort of heroine 
who would carry him through half a dozen editions. Suppose 
I had asked that Bearded Lady to sing ? Confess, now,* miss, 
you would not have been displeased if I had told you that she 
had a voice like Lablaehe, only ever so much lower. 

My dear, you would like to be a heroine ? You would like 
to travel in triumphal caravans ; to see your effig}' placarded 
on city walls ; to have your levees attended by admiring crowds, 
all crying out, ** Was there ever such a wonder of a woman ? '* 
You would like admiration ? Consider the tax you pay for it. 
You would be alone were you eminent. Were you so distin- 
guished from your neighbors — I will not say by a beard and 
whiskers, that were odious — but by a great and remarkable 
intellectual superiority — would you, do you think, be any the 
happier? Consider envy. Consider solitude. Consider the 
jealousy and torture of mind which this Kentucky lady must 
feel, suppose she should hear that there is, let us say, a 
Missouri prodigy, with a beard larger than hers ? Consider 
how she is separated from her kind by the possession of that 
wonder of a beard ? When that beard groAvs gray, how lonely 
she will be, the poor old thing ! If it falls off, the public ad- 
miration falls off too ; and how she will miss it — the compli- 
ments of the trumpeters, the admiration of the crowd, the 
gilded progress of the car. I see an old woman alone in a 
decrepit old caravan, with cobwebs on the knocker, with a 
blistered ensign flapping idly over the door. Would you like 
to be that deserted person ? Ah, Chloe ! To be good, to be 
simple, to be modest, to be loved, be thy lot. Be thankful 
thou are not taller, nor stronger, nor richer, nor wiser than the 
rest of the world ! 



138 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



ON LETTS' S DIAR Y, 



Mine is one of your No. 12 diaries, three shillings cloth 
boards ; silk limp, gilt edges, three- and-six ; French morocco, 
tuck ditto, four-and-six. It has two pages, ruled with faint 
lines for memoranda, for every week, and a ruled account at 
the end, for the twelve months from January to December, 
where»you may set down your incomings and your expenses. 
I hope yours, my respected reader, are large ; that there are 
many fine round sums of figures on each side of the page : 
liberal on the expenditure side, greater still on the receipt. I 
hope, sir, you will be "" a better man," as they say, in '62 than 
in this moribund '61, whose career of life is just coming to its 
terminus. A better man in purse ? in body .^ in souPs health ? 
Amen, good sir, in all." Who is there so good in mind, body or 
estate, but bettering won't still be good for him .? O unknown 
Fate, presiding over next year, if you will give me better health, 
a better appetite, a better digestioi^i, a better income, a better 
temper in '62 than you have bestowed in '61, I think your ser- 
vant will be the better for the changes. For instance, I should 
be the better for a new coat. This one, I acknowledge, is very- 
old. The family says so. My good friend, who amongst us 
would not be the better if he would give up some old habits ? 
Yes, yes. You agree wdth me. You take the allegory? Alas! 
at our time of life we don't like to give up those old haT^its, do 
we ? It is ill to change. There is the good old loose, easy, 
slovenly bedgown, laziness, for example. What man of sense 
likes to fling it off and put on a tight gimide prim dress-coat 
that pinches him ? There is the cozy wTaprascal, self-indul- 
gence — how easy it is ! How warm 1 How^ it always seems 
to fit ! You can walk out in it ; you can go dow^n to dinner in 
it. You can say of such wdiat Tully says of his books : Fer- 
noctat 7iobiscum^ pe7'egrinaticr^ rusticaiur^ It is a little slatternly 
— it is a good deal stained— it isn't becoming — it smells of 
cigar-smoke ; but, allons done ! let the w^orld call me idle and 
sloven. I love my ease better than my neighbor's opinion. I 
live to please myself ; not you, Mr. Dandy, with your supercil- 
ious airs. I am a philosopher. Perhaps I live in my tub, and 

don't make any other use of it . We won't pursue further 

this unsavory metaphor ; but, with regard to some of your old 
habits, let us say — 



^ ON LE TTS'S DIAR K 139 

1. The habit of being censorious, and speaking ill of your 
neighbors. 

2. The habit of getting into a passion with your man-ser- 
vant, your maid-servant, your daughter, wife, &c. 

3. The habit of indulging too much at table. 

4. The habit of smoking in the dining-room after dinner. 

5. The habit of spending insane sums of money in bric-Or 
brae, tall copies, binding, Elzevirs, &c. ; '20 Port, outrageously 
fine horses, ostentatious entertainments, and what not .? or, 

6. The habit of screwing meanly, when rich, and chuckling 
over the saving of half a crown, whilst you are poisoning your 
friends and family with bad wine. 

7. The habit of going to sleep Immediately after dinner, in- 
stead of cheerfully entertaining Mrs. Jones and the family : or, 

8. Ladies ! The habit of running up bills with the^ milli- 
ners, and swindling paterfamilias on the house bills. 

9. The habit of keeping him waiting for breakfast. 

10. The habit of sneering at Mrs. Brown and the Miss 
Browns, because they are not quite du moiide^ or quite so gen- 
teel as Lady Smith. 

11. The habit of keeping your wretched father up at balls 
till five o'clock in the morning, when he has to be at his office 
at eleven. 

12. The habit of fighting with each other, dear Louisa, Jane, 
Arabella, Amelia. 

13. The habit of always ordering John Coachman three- 
quarters of an hour before you want him. 

Such habits, I say, sir or madam, if you have had to note in 
your diary of '61, I have not the slightest doubt you will enter 
in your pocket-book of '62. There are habits Nos. 4 and 7, for 
example. I am morally Hure that some of us will not give up 
those bad customs, though the women cry out and grumble, 
and scold ever so justly. There are habits Nos. 9 and 13. I 
feel perfectly certain, my dear young ladies, that you will con- 
tinue to keep John Coachman waiting ; that you will continue 
to give the most satisfactory reasons for keeping him waiting : 
and as for '(9), you will show that you once (on the ist of April 
last, let us say,) came to breakfast first, and that you are always 
first in consequence. 

Yes ; in our '62 diaries, I fear we may all of us make some 
of the '61 entries. There is my friend Freehand, for instance. 
(Aha ! Master Freehand, how you will laugh to find yourself 
here !) F. is in the habit of spending a little, ever so little, more 
than his income. He shows vou how Mrs. Freehand works, 



I40 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



and works (and indeed, Jack Freehand, if you say she is an 
angel, you don't say too much of her) ; how they toil, and how 
they mend, and patch, and pinch j and how they can't live on 
their means. And I very much fear — nay, I will bet him half 
a bottle of Gladstone \\s. per dozen claret — that the account 
which is a little on the wrong side this year, will be a little on 
the wrong side in the nexfensuing year of grace. 

' A diary. Dies. Hodie. How queer to read are some of 
the entries in the journal ! Here are the records of dinners 
eaten, and gone the way of liesh. The lights burn b.lue some- 
how, and we sit before the ghosts of victuals. Hark at the 
dead jokes resurging ! Memory greets them with the ghost of 
a smile. Here are the lists of the individuals who have dined 
at your own humble table. The agonies endured before and 
during those entertainments are renewed, and smart again. 
What a failure that special grand dinner was ! How those 
dreadful occasional waiters did break the old china ! What a 
dismal hash poor Mary, the cook, made of the French dish 
which she would try out of Francatelli I How angry Mrs. Pope 
was at not going down to dinner before Mrs. Bishop! How 
Trimalchio sneered at your absurd attempt to give a feast ; and 
Harpagon cried out at your extravagance and ostentation ! 
How Lady Almack bullied the other ladies in the drawing- 
room (when no gentlemen were present) : . never asked you 
back to dinner again : left her card by her footman : and took 
not the slightest notice of your wife and daughters at Lady 
Hustleby's assembly 1 On the other hand, how easy, cozy, 
merry, comfortable, those little dinners were ; got up at one or 
two days' notice ; when everybody was contented ; the soup as 
clear as amber ; the wine as good as Trimalchio's own ; and 
the people kept their carriages waiting, and would not go away 
till midnight 1 

Along with the catalogue of by-gone pleasures, balls, ban- 
quets, and the like, which the pages record, comes a list of 
much more important occurrences, and remembrances of graver 
import. On two days of Dives' diary are printed notices that 
" Dividends are due at the Bank." Let us hope, dear sir, that 
this announcement considerably interests you ; in which case, 
probaoly, you have no need of the almanac-maker's printed re- 
minder. If you look over poor Jack Reckless's note-book, 
amongst his^memoranda of racing odds given and taken, per- 
haps you may read: — " Nabbam'^'s bill, due 29th September, 
142/. 15^-. 6//." Let us trust, as the day has passed, that the 
little transaction here noted has been satisfactorily terminated. 



OjV LE TTS'S DIA R\\ 14 1 

If you are paterfamilias, and a worthy kind gentleman, no 
doubt you have marked clown an your register, 17th Decemiber 
(say), "Boys come home/' Ah, how carefully that blessed 
day is marked in their little calendars ! In my time it used to 
be, Wednesday, 13th November, '' 5 lueeks from the holidays ; '' 
Wednesday, 20th November, *^ 4 weeks fj'om the holidays;^'' 
until sluggish time sped on, and we came to Wednesday, i8th 
DecExMber. O rapture! Do you remember pea-shooters ? I 
think we only had them on going home for holidays from pri- 
vate schools, — at public schools, men are too dignified. And 
then came that glorious announcement, Wednesday, 27th, 
" Papa took us to the Pantomime ; " or if not papa, perhaps 
you condescended to go to the pit, under charge of the foot- 
man. 

That was near the end of the year — and mamma gave you 
a new pocket-book, perhaps, with a little coin, God bless her, 
in the pocket. And that pocket-book was for next year, you 
know ; and, in that pocket-book you had to write down that 
sad day, Wednesday, January 24th, eighteen hundred and never 
mind what, — when Dr. Birch's young friends were expected to 
re-assemble. 

Ah me ! Every person who turns this page over has his own 
little diary, in paper or ruled in his memory tablets, and in 
which are set down the transactions of the now dying year. 
Boys and men, we have our calendar, mothers and maidens. 
For example, in your calendar pocket-bpok, my good Eliza, 
what a sad, sad day that is — hovv fondly and bitterly remem- 
bered — when your boy went off to his regiment, to India, 
to danger, to battle perhaps. What a day was that last day at 
home, when the tall brother sat yet amongst the family, the 
little ones round about him wondering at saddle-boxes, uniforms, 
sword-cases, gun-cases, and other wondrous apparatus of war 
and travel which poured in and filled the hall ; the new dress- 
ing-case for the beard not yet grown ; the great sword- case at 
which little brother Tom looks so admiringly ! What a dinner 
that was, that last dinner, when little and grown children assem- 
bled together, and all tried to be cheerful ! What a night was 
that last night, when the young ones were at roost for the last 
time together under the same roof, and the mother lay alone in 
her chamber counting the fatal hours as they tolled one after 
another, amidst her tears, her watching, her fond prayers. 
What a night that was, and yet how quickly the melancholy 
dawn came ! Only too soon the sun rose over the houses. 
And now in a moment more the citv seemed to wake. The 



1^2 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

house began to stir. The family gathers together for the last 
meal. For the last time in the midst of them the widow kneels 
amongst her kneeling children, and falters a prayer in which 
she commits her dearest, her eldest born, to the care of the 
Father of all. O night, what tears you hide — what prayers you 
hear ! And so the nights pass and the days succeed, until that 
one comes when tears and parting shall be no more. 

In your diary, as in mine, there are days marked with sad- 
ness, not for this year only, but for all On a certain day — • 
and the sun perhaps, shining* ever so brightly — the house- 
mother comes down to her family with a sad face, which scares 
the children round about in the midst of their laughter and 
prattle. They may have forgotten — but she has not — a day 
which came, twenty years ago it may be, and which she remem- 
bers only too well : the long night-watch ; the dreadful dawning 
and the rain beating at the pane ; the infant speechless, but moan- 
ing in its little crib ; and then the awful calm, the awful smile on 
the sweet cherub face, when the cries have ceased, and the little 
suffering breast heaves no more. Then the -children, as they 
see their mother's face, remember this was the day on wliich 
their little brother died. It was before they were born ; but 
she remembers it. And as they pra}^ together, it seems almost 
as if the spirit of the little lost one was hovering round the 
group. So they pass away : friends, kindred, the dearest-loved, 
grown people, aged, infants. As we go on the down-hill jour- 
ney, the mile-stones are grave-stones, and on each more and 
more names are written \ unless haply you live beyond man's 
common age, when friends have dropped off, and, tottering, and 
feeble, and unpitied, you reach the terminus alone. 

In this past year's diary is there any precious day noted on 
which you have made a new friend t This is a piece of good 
fortune bestowed but grudgingly on the old. After a certain 
age a new friend is a wonder, like Sarah's child. Aged persons 
are seldom capable of bearing friendships. Do you remember 
how warmly you loved Jack and Tom when you were at school ; 
what a passionate regard you had for Ned when you were at 
college, and the immense letters you wrote to each other? How 
often do you write, now that postage costs nothing 1 There is 
the age of blossoms and sweet budding green : the age of gen- 
erous summer ; the autumn when the leaves drop ; and then 
winter, shivering and bare. Quick, children, and sit at my feet : 
for they are cold, very cold : and it seems as if neither wine nor 
worsted will warm 'em. 

In this past }'ear's diary is there any dismal day noted in 



av LE rrs's diar y. 143 

which you have lost a friend ? In mine there is. I do not 
mean by death. Those who are gone you have. Those who 
departed loving you, love you still ; and you love them always. 
They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true ; they are 
only gone into the next room : and you will presently get up 
and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you^ and you 
will be no more seen. As I am in this cheerful mood, I wdll 
tell you a fine and touching story of a doctor which I heard 
lately. About two years since there was, in our or some other 
city, a famous doctor, into whose consulting-room crowds came 
daily, so that they might be healed. Now this doctor had a 
suspicion that there was something vitally wrong with himself, 
and he went to consult another famous physician at Dublin, or 
it may be at Edinburgh. And he of Edinburgh punched his 
comrade's sides ; and listened at his heart and lungs ; and felt 
his pulse, I suppose ; and looked at his tongue ; and when he 
had done Doctor London said to Doctor Edinburgh, ** Doctor, 
how long have I to live ? " And Doctor Edinburgh said to 
Doctor London, " Doctor, you may last a year." 

Then Docjor London came home, knowing that what Doc- 
tor Edinburgh said was true. And he made up his accounts, 
with man and heaven, I trust. And he visited his patients as 
usual. And he went about healing, and cheering, and soothing 
and doctoring ; and thousands of sick people were benefited by 
him. And he said not a word to his family at home ; but lived 
amongst them cheerful and tender, and calm, and loving ; 
though he knew the niglrt was at hand when he should see 
them and work no more. 

And it was winter time, and they came and told him that 
some man at a distance — veiy sick, but ver}' rich— wanted him ; 
and though Doctor London knew that he was himself at death's 
door, he went to the sick man ; for he knew the large fee would 
be good for his children after him. And he died ; and his 
family never knew until he was gone, that he had been long 
aware of the inevitable doom. 

This is a cheerful carol for Christmas, is it not? You see, 
in regard to these Roundabout discourses, I never know whether 
they are to be merry or dismal. My hobby has the bit in his 
mouth ; goes his own way ; and trots through a park, and 
paces by a cemeter}-. Two days since came the printer's little 
emissar}', with a note saying, '^ We are waiting for the Round- 
about Paper ! " A Roundabout Paper about what or whom } 
How stale it has become, that printed jollity about Christmas ! 
Carols, and wassail-bowls, and holly, and mistletoe, and yule< 



144 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

logs de com?7m7ide — what heaps of these have we not had for 
years past ! Well, year after year the season conies. Come 
frost, come thaw, come snow, come rain, year after year my 
neighbor the parsoiv has to make his sermon. They are 
getting together the bonbons, iced cakes, Christmas trees at 
Fortnum and Mason's now. The genii of the theatres are com- 
posing the Christmas pantomime, which our young folks will 
see and note anon in their little diaries. 

And now, brethren, may I conclude this discourse with an 
extract out of that great diary, the newspaper ? I read it but 
yesterday, and it has mingled with all my thoughts since then* 
Here are the two paragraphs, which appeared following each 
other :— 

" Mr. R., the Advocate-General of Calcutta, has been ap- 
pointed to the post of Legislative Member of the Council of 
the Governor-General.'^ 

" Sir R. S., Agent to the Governor-General for Central In- 
dia, died on the 29th of October, of bronchitis.'' 

These two men, whose different fates are recorded in two 
paragraphs and half a dozen lines of the same newspaper, 
were sisters' sons. In one of the stories by the present writer- 
a man is described tottering " up the steps of the ghaut," hav- 
ing just parted with his child, whom he is despatching to Eng- 
land from India. I wrote this, remembering' in long, long dis- 
tant days, such a ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta; and a day 
when, down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came 
two children, whose mothers remained on the shore. One of 
those ladies was never to see her boy more ; and he, too, is 
just dead in India, ^' of bronchitis, on the 29th October." We 
were first-cousins ; had been little playmates and friends from 
the time of our birth ; and the first house in London to which 
I was taken, was that of our aunt, the mother of his Honor 
the Member of Council. His Honor was even then a gentle- 
man of the long robe, being, in truth, a baby in arms. We In- 
dian children were consigned to a school of which our deluded 
parents had heard a favorable report, but which was governed 
by a horrible little tyrant, who made our young lives so misera- 
ble that I remember kneeling by my little bed of a night, and 
saying, " Pray God, I may dream of my mother ! " Thence we 
went to a public school ; and my cousin to Addiscombe and to 
India. 

" For thirty-two years," the paper says, '' Sir Richmond 
Shakespear faithfully and devotedly served the Government of 
India, and during that period but once visited England, for a 



ON LE TTS'S DIA RY. 1 4 1 

few months and on public duty. In his military capacity he 
saw much service, was present in eight general engagements, 
and was badly wounded in the last. In 1840, when a young 
lieutenant, he had the rare good fortune to be the means of 
rescuing from almost hopeless slavery in Khiva 416 subjects of 
the Emperor of Russia ; and, but two years later, greatly con- 
tributed to the happy recovery of our own prisoners from a 
similar fate in Cabul. Throughout his career this officer was 
ever ready and zealous for the public service, and freely risked 
life and liberty in the discharge of his duties. Lord Canning, 
to mark his high sense of Sir Richmond Shakespear's public 
services, had lately offered him the Chief Commissionership of 
Mysore, which he had accepted, and was about to undertake, 
when death terminated his career.'' 

When he came to London the cousins and playfellows of 
early Indian days met once again, and shook hands. " Can I 
do anything for you .^ " I remember the kind fellow asking. 
He was always asking that question : of all kinsmen ; of all 
widows and orphans ; of all the poor ; of young men who might 
need his purse or his service. I saw a young officer yesterday 
to whom the first words Sir Richmond Shakespear wrote on his 
arrival in India were, '^ Can I do anything for you ? " His purse 
was at the command of all. His kind hand w^as always open. 
It was a gracious fate which sent him to rescue widows and 
captives. Where could they have had a champion more chival- 
rous, a protector more loving and tender t 

I write down his name in my little book, among those of 
others dearly loved, w^ho, too, have been summoned hence. 
And so we meet and part \ we struggle and succeed ; or we fail 
and drop unknown on the way. As we leave the fond mother's 
knee, the rough trials of childhood and boyhood begin ; and 
then manhood is upon us, and the battle of life, with its chances, 
perils, wounds, defeats, distinctions. And Fort William guns 
are saluting in one man's honor,* while the troops are firing 
the last volleys over the other's grave — over the grave of the 
brave, the gentle, the faithful Christian soldier. 

* W. R. cbiit March 22, 1862. 
10 



140 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 

Most of us tell old stories in our families. The wife and 
children laugh for the hundredth time at the joke. The old 
servants (though old servants are fewer every day) nod and 
smile a recognition at the well-known anecdote. *'' Don't tell 
that story of Grouse in the gun-room/' says Diggory to Mr. 
Hardcastle in the play^ " or I must laugh." As we twaddle,* 
and grow old and forgetful, we may tell an old story ; or, out 
of mere benevolence, and a wish to amuse a friend when con- 
versation is flagging, disinter a Joe Miller now and then ; but 
the practice is not quite honest, and entails a certain necessity 
of hypocrisy on story hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing, 
to think that a man with what you call a fund of anecdote is a 
humbug, more or less amiable and pleasant. What right have 
I to tell my '' Grouse in the gun-room '^ over and over in the 
presence of my wife, mother, mother-in-law, sons, daughters, 
old footman or parlor-maid, confidential clerk, curate, or what 
not ? I smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable 
imitations of the characters introduced : I mimic Jones's grin, 
Hobbs's squint, Brown's stammer, Grady's brogue, Sandy's 
Scotch accent, to the best of my power : and the family part 
of my audience laughs good-humoredly. Perhaps the stranger, 
for whose amusement the performance is given, is amused by it, 
and laughs too. But this practice continued is not moral. 
This self-indulgence on your part, my dear Paterfamilias, is 
w-eak, vain — not to say culpable. I can imagine many a worthy 
man, who begins unguardedly to read this page, and comes to the 
•present sentence, lying back in his chair, thinking of that story 
which he has told innocently for fifty years, and rather piteously 
owning to himself, " Well, well, it is wrong ; I have no right to 
call on my poor wife to laugh, my daughters to affect to be 
amused, by that old, old jest of mine. And they would have 
gone on laughing, and they would have pretended to be amused, 
to their dying day, if this man had not flung his damper over 
our hilarity." * ^ ^ j lay down the pen, and think, "Are 
there any old stories w^hich I still tell myself in the bosom of 
my family ? Have I any * Grouse in my gun-room t ' " If there 
are such, it is because my memory fails ; not because. I want 
applause, and wantonly repeat myself. You see, men with the 
soK:alled fund of anecdote will not repeat the same story to the 



KOTES OF A IVEEICS HO LID A K 



U7 



same individual ; but they do think that, on a new party, 
the repetition of a jok? ever so old may be honorably tried. I 
meet men walking the London street, bearing the best reputa- 
tion, men of anecdotal powers : — I know such, who very likely 
will read this, and say, "Hang the fellow, he means me P^ 
And so I do. No— no man ought to tell an anecdote more 
than thrice, let us say, unless he is sure he is speaking only to 
give pleasure to his hearers — unless he feels that it is not a 
mere desire for praise which makes him open his jaws. 

And is it not with writers as with 7^aconteurs ? Ought they 
not to have their ingenuous modesty ? May authors tell old 
stories, and how many times -over? When I come to look at a 
place which I have visited any time these twenty or thirty 
years, I recall not the place merely, but the sensations I had 
at first seeing it, and w^hich are quite different to my feelings 
to-day. The first day at Calais ; the voices of the women 
crying out at night, as the vessel came alongside the pier ; the 
supper at Quillacq's and the flavor of the cutlets and wine ; the 
red-calico canopy under which I slept ; the tiled floor, and the 
fresh smell of the sheets ; the wonderful postilion in his Jack- 
boots and pigtail ; — all return with perfect clearness to my 
mind, and I am seeing them, and not the objects which are 
actually under my eyes. Here is Calais. Yonder is that com- 
missioner I have known this score of years. Here are the 
w^omen screaming and bustling over the baggage ; the people 
at the passport-barrier who take your papers. My good people, 
I hardly see you. You no more interest me than a dozen 
orange-w^omen in Covent Garden, or a shop bookkeeper in 
Oxford Street. But you make me think of a time when you 
were indeed wonderful to behold — when the little French 
soldiers wore white cockades in their shakos — when the dili- 
gence was forty hours going to Paris ; and the great-booted 
postilion as surveyed by youthful eyes from the coupe, with his 
jiirons^ his ends of rope for the harness, and his clubbed pigtail, 
was a wonderful being, and productive of endless amusement. 
You young folks don't remember the apple-girls who used to 
follow the dijigence up the hill bevond Boulogne, and the de- 
lights of the jolly road ? In making continental journeys with 
young folks, an oldster may be very quiet, and, to outward 
appearance, melancholy ; but really he has gone back to the 
days of his youth, and he is seventeen or eighteen years of age 
(as the case may be), and is amusing himself with all his might. 
He is noting the horses as they come squealing out of the 
post-house yard at midnight ; he is enjoying the delicious meals 



ij^Q, ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

at Beauvais and Amiens, and quaffing ad libitum the rich table* 
d'hote wine; he is hail-fellow with the conductor, and alive to 
all the incidents of the road. A man can be alive in i860 and 
1830 at the same time, don't you see ? Bodily, I may be in 
i860, inert, silent, torpid ; but in the spirit I am walking about 
in 1828, let us say; — in a blue dress-coat and brass buttons, a 
sweet figured silk waistcoat (which I button round a slim waist 
with perfect ease), looking at beautiful beings wdth gigot sleeves 
and tea-tray hats under the golden chestnuts of the Tuileries, 
or round the Place Vendome, where the drapeau blaiic is float- 
ing from the statueless column. Shall we go and dine at 
'• Bombarda's," near the "Hotel Breteuil," or at the "Cafe 
Virginie 1 ''—Away ! " Bombarda's " and the " Hotel Breteuil " 
have been pulled down ever so long. They knocked dovm the 
poor old Virginia Coffee-house last year. My spirit goes and 
dines there. My body, perhaps, is seated with ever so many 
people in a railw^ay-carriage, and no wonder my companions 
find me dull and silent. Have you read Mr. Dale Owen's 
" Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World ? " — (My dear 
sir, it will make your hair stand quite refreshingly on end.) In 
that w^ork you will read that wdien gentlemen's or ladies' spirits 
travel off a few score or thousand miles to visit a friend, their 
bodies lie quiet and in a torpid state in their beds or in their 
arm-chairs at home. So in this w^ay, I am absent. My soul 
whisks away thirty years back into the past. I am looking out 
anxiously for a beard. I am getting past the age of loving 
Byron's poems, and pretend that I like Wordsw^orth and Shelley 
much better. Nothing I eat or drink (in reason) disagrees 
\vith me ; and I know whom I think to be the most lovely 
creature in the w^orld. Ah, dear maid (of that remote but well- 
remembered period), are you a wife or wido w^now ? — are you 
dead ? — are you thin and withered and old ? — or are you grown 
much stouter, with a false front } and so forth. 

O Eliza, Eliza! — Stay, tc/^j- she Eliza .^ Well, I protest I 
have forgotten what your Christian name was. You know I 
only met you for two days, but your sweet face is before me 
now, and the roses blooming on it are as fresh aa in that time 

of May. Ah, dear Miss X , my timid youth and. ingenuous 

modesty would never have allowed me, even in my private 
thoughts, to address you otherwise than by your paternal name, 
but that (though I conceal it) I remember perfectly well and 
that your dear and respected father was a brewer. 

Carillon. — I was awakened this morning with the chime 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY, 



149 



which Antwerp cathedral clock plays at half-hours. The tune 
has been haunting me ever since, as tunes will. You dress, 
eat, drink, walk, and talk to yourself to their tune : their 
inaudible jingle accompanies you all day : you read the sen- 
tences of the paper to their rhythm. I tried uncouthly to 
imitate the tune to the ladies of the family at breakfast, and 
they say it is " the shadow dance of Dinorah'' It may be so. 
I dimly remem.ber that my body was once present during the 
performance of that opera, whilst my eyes were closed, and my 
intellectual faculties dormant at the back of the box ; howbeit, 
I have learned that shadow dance from hearing it pealing up 
ever so high in the air, at night, morn, noon. 

How pleasant to lie awake and listen to the cheer}' peal ! 
whilst the old city is asleep at midnight, or waking up rosy at 
sunrise, or basking in noon, or swept by the scudding rain 
w^hich drives in gusts over the broad places, and the great 
shining river ; or sparkling in snow which dresses up a hundred 
thousand masts, peaks and towers j or wrapt round with thunder- 
cloud canopies, before wdiich the white gables shine whiter ; 
day and night the kind little carillon plays its fantastic melodies 
overhead. The bells go on ringing. Quot vivos vocant, mortiios 
plaiigunt^ fulgura fratigunt ; so on to the past and future tenses, 
and for how many nights, days, and years ! Whilst the French 
were pitching \\\€^ fulgwa into Chasse's citadel, the bells went 
on ringing quite cheerfully. Whilst the scaffolds were up and 
guarded by Alva's soldiery, and regiments of penitents, blue, 
black, and gray, poured out of churches and convents, droning 
their dirges, and marching to the place of the Hotel de Ville, 
where heretics and rebels w^ere to meet their doom, the bells 
up yonder were chanting at their appointed half-hours and 
quarters, and rang the viaicvais quart d'heure for many a poor 
soul. This bell can see as far away as the towers and dykes 
of Rotterdam. That one can call a greeting to St. Ursula's at 
Brussels, and toss a recognition to that one at the towm-hall of 
Oudenarde, and remember how^ after a great struggle there a 
hundred and fifty years ago the whole plain w^as covered with 
the flying French cavalr}- — Burgundy, and Berri, and the Chev- 
alier of St. George flying like the rest. *' What is your clamor 
about Oudenarde?" says another bell (Bob Major this one 
must be). ** Be still, thou querulous old clapper 1 / can see 
over to Hougoumont and St. John. And about forty-five years 
since, I rang all through one Sunday in June when there was 
such a battle going on in the corn-fields there, as none of you 
others ever heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until 



1-0 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

after vespers, the French and English were all at it, ding-dong/* 
And then calls of business intervening, the bells have to give 
up their private jangle, -resume their professional duty, and 
sing their hourly chorus out of D'morah. 

What a prodigious distance those bells can be heard 1 I was 
awakened this morning to their tune, I say. I have been hear- 
ing it constantly ever since. And this house whence I write, 
Murray says, is two hundred and ten miles from Antwerp. And 
it is a week off \ and there is the bell still jangling its shadov/ 
dance out of Dinorah, An audible shadow you understand, 
and an invisible . sound, but quite distinct ; and a plague take 
the tune ! 

Under the Bells. — Who has not seen the church under 
the bells ? Those lofty aisles, those twilight chapels, that cum- 
bersome pulpit with its huge carvings, that wide gray pavement 
flecked with various light from the jewelled windows, those 
famous pictures between the voluminous columns over the 
altars, which twinkle with their ornaments, their votive little 
silver hearts, legs, limbs, their little guttering tapers, cups of 
sham roses, and what not ? I saw two regiments of little 
scholars creeping in and forming square, each in its appointed 
place, under the vast roof ; and teachers presently coming to 
them. A stream of light from the jewelled windows beams 
slanting down upon each little squad of children, and the tall 
background of the church retires into a grayer gloom. Patter- 
ing little feet of laggards arriving echo through the great nave. 
They trot in and join their regiments, gathered under the slant- 
ing sunbeams. What are they learning? Is it truth ? Those 
two gray ladies with their books in their hands in the midst of 
these little people have -no doubt of the truth of every word 
they have printed under their eyes. Look, through the windows 
jewelled all over with saints, the light comes streaming down 
from the sky, and heaven's own illuminations paint the book ! 
A sweet, touching picture indeed it is, that of the little children 
assembled in this immense temple, which has endured for ages, 
and grave teachers bending over them. Yes, the picture is 
very pretty of the children and their teachers, and their book — • 
but the text ? Is it the truth, the only truth, and nothing but 
the truth ? If I thought so, I would go and sit down on the 
form cum parvtdis^ and learn the precious lesson with all my 
heart. 

Beadle. — But I submit, an obstacle to conversions is the 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. T51 

intrusion and impertinence of that Swiss fellow with the baldric 
• — the officer who answers to the beadle of the British Islands, 
and is pacing about the church with an eye on the congrega- 
tion. Now the boast of Catholics is that their churches are 
open to all j but in certain places and churches there are ex- 
ceptions. At Rome I have been into St. Peter's at all hours : 
the doors are always open, the lamps are always burning, the 
faithful are fore-ver kneeling at one shrine or the other. But 
at Antwerp not so. In the afternoon you can go to the church, 
and be civilly treated ; but you must pay a franc at the side 
gate. In the forenoon the doors are open, to be sure, and 
there is no one to levy an entrance fee. I was standing ever 
so still, looking through the great gates of the choir at the 
twinkling lights, and listening to the distant chants of the 
priests performing the service, when a s\veet chorus from the 
organ-loft broke out behind me overhead, and I turned round. 
My friend the drum-major ecclesiastic was down upon me in a 
moment. '' Do not turn your back to the altar during divine 
service," says he, in very intelligible English. I take the 
rebuke, and turn a soft right-about face, and listen awhile as 
the service continues, ^e it I cannot, nor the altar and its 
ministrants. We are separated from these by a great screen 
and closed gates of iron, through which the lamps glitter and 
the chant comes by gusts only. Seeing a score of children 
trotting down a side aisle, I think I may follow them. I am 
tired of looking at that hideous old pulpit with its grotesque 
monsters and decorations. I slip off to the side aisle ; but my 
friend the drum-major is instantly after me — almost I thought 
he was going to lay hands on me. '^You mustn't go there,'* 
says he ; *^ you mustn't disturb the service." I was moving as 
quietly as might be, and ten paces off there were twenty children 
kicking and clattering at their ease. I point them out to the 
Swiss. *' They come to pray," says he. *' You don't come to 
pray, you " " When I come to pay," says I, ^^ I am wel- 
come," and with this withering sarcasm, I walk out of church 
in a huff. I don't envy the feelings of that beadle after re- 
ceiving point blank such a stroke of wit. 

Leo Belgicus. — Perhaps you wdll say after this I am a pre- 
judiced critic. I see the pictures in the cathedral fuming under 
the rudeness of that beadle, or, at the lawful hours and prices, 
pestered by a swarm of shabby touters, who come behind me 
chattering in bad English, and who would have me see the 
sights through their mean, greedy eyes. Better see Rubens 



1^2 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

anywhere than In a^ church. At the Academy, for example, 
where you may study him_ at your leisure. But at church ? — I 
w-ould as soon ask Alexandre Dumas for a sermon. Either 
would paint you a martyrdom very fiercely and picturesquely- 
writhing muscles, flaming coals, scowling captains and execu- 
tioners, swarming groups, and light, shade, color, most dexter- 
ously brilliant or dark j but in Rubens I am admiring the per- 
former rather than the piece. With what astonishing rapidity 
he travels over his canvas ; how tellingly the cool lights and 
warm shadows are made to contrast and relieve each other ; 
how that blazing, blowsy penitent in yellow satin and glittering 
hair carries down the stream of light across the picture ! This 
is the way to w^ork, my boys, and earn a hundred florins a day. 
See ! I am as sure of my line as a skater of making his figure 
of eight ! and down with a sweep goes a brawny arm or a flow- 
ing curl of drapery. The figures arrange themselves as if by 
magic. The paint-pots are exhausted in furnishing brown 
shadows. The pupils look wondering on, as the master careers 
over the canvas. Isabel or Helena, wife No. i or No. 2, are 
sitting by, buxom, exuberant, ready to be painted ; and the 
children are boxing in the corner, waiting till they are wanted 
to figure as cherubs in the picture. Grave burghers and gen- 
tlefolks come in on a visit. There are oysters and Rhenish 
always ready on yonder table. Was there ever such a painter ? 
He has been an ambassador, an actual Excellency, and what 
better man could be chosen ? He speaks all the languages. 
He earns a hundred florins a day. Prodigious 1 Thirty-six 
thousand five hundred florins a year. Enormous ! He rides 
out to his castle with a score of gentlemen after him, like the 
Governor. That is. his own portrait as St. George. You know 
he is an English knight ? Those are his two wives as the two 
Maries. He chooses the handsomest wives. He rides the 
handsomest horses. He paints the handsomest pictures. He 
gets the handsomest prices for them. That slim young Van 
Dyck, who was his pupil, has genius too, and is painting all the 
noble ladies in England, and turning the heads of some of 
them. And Jordaens — what a droll dog and clever fellow ! 
Have you seen his fat Silenus ? The master himself could not 
paint better. And his altar-piece at St. Bavon's ? He can paint 
you anything, that Jordaens can — a drunken jollification of 
boors and doxies, or a martyr howling with half his skin off. 
What a knowledge of anatomy! But there is nothing like the 
master — nothing. He can paint you his thirty-six thousand 
five hundred florins' worth a year. Have you heard of what 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HO LID A \\ 



15.^ 



ne has done for the French Court ? Prodigious ! I can't look 
at Rubens' pictures without fancying I see that handsome 
figure swaggering before the canvas. And Hans Hemmelinck 
at Bruges ? Have you never seen that dear old hospital of St. 
John, on passing the gate of which you enter into the fifteenth 
century ? I see the wounded soldier still lingering in the house, 
and tended by the kind gray sisters. His little panel on its easel 
is placed at the light. He covers his board with the most w^on- 
drous, beautiful little figures, in robes as bright as rubies and 
amethysts. I think he must have a magic glass, in whicii he 
catches the'reflection of little cherubs with many-colored wings, 
very little and bright. Angels, in long crisp robes of white, 
surrounded with haloes of gold, come and flutter across the 
mirror, and he draws them. He hears mass every day. He 
fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than 
Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the 
lion .^ the eagle rushing through the storm, and pouncing may- 
hap on carrion ; or the linnet warbling on the spray ? 

By much the most delightful of the Christopher ^^t of Rubens 
to my rriind (and ego is introduced on these occasions, so that 
the opinion may pass only for my own, at the reader's humble 
service to be received or declined,) is the ^* Presentation in the 
Temple : '^ splendid in color, in sentiment sweet and tender, 
finely conveying the story. To be sure, all the others tell their 
tale unmistakably — witness that coarse '^Salutation,'' thai 
magnificent " Adoration of the Kings " (at the Museum), by 
the same strong downright hands ; that wonderful *' Commun- 
ion of St. Francis," which, I think, gives the key to the artist's 
falre better that any of his performances. I have passed hours 
before that picture in my time, trying and sometimes fancying 
I could understand by what masses and contrasts the artist ar- 
rived at his effect. In many others of the pictures parts of his 
method are painfully obvious, and you see how grief and agony 
are produced by blue lips, and eyes rolling bloodshot with 
dabs of vermilion. There is something simple in the practice. 
Contort the eyebrow sufficiently, and place the eyeball near it, — 
by a few lines you have anger or fierceness depicted. Give me 
a mouth with no special expression, and pop a dab of carmine 
at each extremity — and theie are the lips smiling. This is art 
if you will, but a very naive kind of art : and now you know the 
trick, don't you see how easy it is t 

Tu QuoQUE. — Now you know the trick, suppose you take a 
canvas and see whether jou can do it } There are brushes, 



,54 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

palettes, and gallipots full of paint and varnish. Have you 
tried, my dear sir— -you, who set up to be a connoisseur ? Have 
you tried ? I have — and many a day. And the end of the 
day's labor? O dismal conclusion! Is this puerile niggling, 
this feeble scrawl, this impotent rubbish, all you can produce — • 
you, who but now found Rubens commonplace and vulgar, and 
were pointing out the tricks of his mystery.? Pardon, O great 
chief, magnificent master and poet ! You can do. We critics, 
who sneer and are wise, can but pry, and measure, and doubt, 
and carp. Look at the lion. Did you ever see such a gross, 
shaggy, mangy, roaring brute ? Look at him eating lumps of 
raw meat— positively bleeding, and raw and tough — till, faugh ! 
it turns one's stomach to see him — O the coarse wretch ! Yes, 
but he is a lion. Rubens has lifted his great hand, and the 
mark he has made has endured for two centuries, and we still 
continue wondering at him, and admiring him. What a 
strength in that arm ! What splendor of will hidden behind 
that tawny beard, and those honest eyes ! Sharpen your pen, 
my. good critic. Shoot a feather into him ; hit him, and make 
him wince. Yes, you may hit him fair, and make him bleed, 
too ; but, for all that, he is a lion — a mighty, conquering, gen- 
erous, rampagious Leo Belgicus — monarch of his wood. And 
he is not dead yet, and I will not kick at him. 

Sir Antony. — In that ^^ Pieta " of Van Dyck, in the Mu- 
seum, have you ever looked at the yellow-robed angel, with the 
black scarf thrown over her wings and robe ? W^hat a charm- 
ing figure of grief and beauty ! What a pretty compassion it 
inspires ! It soothes and pleases me like a sweet rhythmic 
chant. See how delicately the yellow robe contrasts with the 
bhie sky behind, and the scarf binds the two ! If Rubens lack-ed 
grace. Van Dyck abounded in it. What a consummate ele- 
gance ! What a perfect cavalier ! No wonder the fine ladies 
in England admired Sir Antony. Look at 

Here the clock strikes three, and the three gendarmes who 
keep the Mu see cry out, " Allo?is f So?'tons I II est irois heiires ! 
Allez! Sortez /" and they skip out of the gallery as happy as 
boys running from school. And we must go too, for though 
many stay behind — many Britons with Murray's handbooks in 
their handsome hands — they have paid a franc for entrance- 
fee, you see : and we knew nothing about the franc for entrance 
until those gendarmes with sheathed sabres had driven us out 
of this Paradise. 

But it was good to go and drive on the great quays, and see 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 155 

the ships unlading, and by the citadel, and wonder hov/abouts 
and whereabouts it was so strong. We expect a citadel to looks 
like Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein at least. But in this one there 
is nothing to see but a flat plain and some ditches, and some 
trees, and mounds of uninteresting green. And then I remem- 
ber how there was a boy at school, a little dumpy fellow of no 
personal appearance whatever, who couldn't be overcome except 
by a much bigger champion, and the immensest quantity of 
thrashing. A perfect citadel of a boy, with a General Chasse 
sitting in that bomb-proof casemate, his heart, letting blow after 
blow come thumping about his head, and never thinking of 

ing in. 

And we go home, and we dine in the company of Britons, at 
the comfortable Hotel du Pare, and we have bought a novel 
apiece for a shilling, and every half-hour the sweet carillon 
plays the waltz from Dinorah in the air. And we have been 
happy ; and it seems about a month since we left London yes- 
terdav ; and nobody knows where we are, and we defy care and 
the postman. 

Spoorweg. — Vast green flats, speckled by spotted cows, 
and bound by a gray frontier of windmills ; shining canals 
stretching through the green ; odors like those exhaled from 
the Thames in the dog-days, and a fine pervading smell of 
cheese ; little trim houses, with tall roofs, and great windows of 
many panes ; gazebos, or summer-houses, hanging over-pea- 
green canals ; kind-looking, dumpling-faced farmers' women, 
with laced caps and golden frontlets and earrings ; about the 
houses and tov/ns which we pass a great air of comfort and 
neatness ; a queer feeling of wonder that you can't understand 
what your fellow-passengers are saying, the tone of whose 
voices, and a certain comfortable dowdiness of dress, are so 
like our own ; — whilst we are remarking on these sights, sounds, 
smells, the little railway journey from Rotterdam to the Hague 
comes to an end. . I speak to the railway porters and hackney 
coachman in English, and they rep'y in their osvn language, 
and it seems somehow as iE we understood each other perfectly. 
The carriage drives to the handsome, comfortable, cheerful 
hotel. We sit down a score at the table ; and there is one for- 
eigner and his wife, — I mean ever)'' other man and woman at 
dinner are English. As we are close to the sea, and in the 
midst of endless canals, v/e have no fish. We are reminded of 
dear England by the noble prices which we pay for wines. I 
confess I lost my temper yesterday at Rotterdam, where I had 



156 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

to pay a florin for a bottle of ale (the water not being drinkable, 
and country or Bavarian beer not being genteel enough for the 
hotel) ; — I confess, I say, that my fine temper was ruffled, when 
the bottle of pale ale turned out to be a pint bottle ; and I 
meekly told the waiter that I had bought beer at Jerusalem at a 
less price. But then Rotterdam is eighteen hours from London, 
and the steamer with the passengers and beer comes up to the 
hotel windows ; whilst to Jerusalem they have to carry the ale 
on camels' backs from Beyrout or Jaffa, and through hordes of 
marauding Arabs, who evidently don't care for pale ale, though 
I am told it is not forbidden in the Koran. Mine would have 
been very good, but I choked with rage whilst drinking it. A 
florin for a bottle, and that bottle having the words " imperial 
pint,'* in bold relief, on the surface ! It was too much. I in- 
tended not to say anything about it ; but I must speak. A 
florin a bottle, and that bottle a pint! Oh, for shame! for 
shame ! I can't cork down my indignation ; I froth up with 
fury ; I am pale with wrath, and bitter with scorn. 

As we drove through the old city at night, how it swarmed 
and hummed with life ! What a special clatter, crowd, and 
outcry there was in the Jewish quarter, where myriads of young 
ones were trotting about the fishy street ! Why don't they 
have lamps ? We passed by canals seeming so full that a pail- 
ful of water more would overflow the place. The laqiiais-de- 
place cM'^ out the names of the buildings : the town-hall, the 
cathedial the arsenal, the synagogue, the statue of Erasmus. 
Get along ! We know the statue of Erasmus well enough. We 
pass over drawbridges by canals where thousands of barges 
are at roost. At roost — at rest ! Shall we have rest in those 
bedrooms, those ancient lofty bedrooms, in that inn where we 
have to pay a florin for a pint of pa — psha ! at the " New Bath 
Hotel " on the Boompjes ? If this dreary edifice is the " New 
Bath," what must the Old Bath be like ? As I feared to go to 
bed, I sat in the coffee-room as long as I might; but three 
young men were imparting their private adventures to each 
other with such freedom and liveliness that I felt I ought not 
to listen to their artless prattle. As I put the light out, and 
felt the bedclothes and darkness overwhelm me, it was with an 
awful sense of terror — that sort of sensation which I should 
think going down in a diving-bell would give. Suppose the 
apparatus goes wrong, and they don't understand your signal 
to mount ? Suppose your matches miss fire when you wake ; 
when you want them, when you will have to rise in half an hour, 
and do battle with the horrid enemy who crawls on you in the 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 1^7 

darkness ? I protest I never was more surprised than when I 
woke and beheld the Ughtof dawn. Indian birds and strange 
trees were visible on the ancient gilt hangings of the lofty cham- 
ber, and through the windows the Boompjes and the ships along 
the quay. We have all read of deserters being brought out, and 
made to kneel, with their eyes bandaged, and hearing the word 
to " Fire " given 1 I declare I underwent all the terrors of exe- 
cution that night, and wonder how I ever escaped unwounded. 
But if ever I go to the " Bath Hotel," Rotterdam, again, I 
am a Dutchman. A guilder for a bottle of pale ale, and that 
bottle a pint ! Ah ! for shame — for shame ! 

Mine Ease in Mine Inn. — Do you object to talk aboui 
inns ? It always seems to me to be very good talk. Walter 
Scott is full of inns. In " Don Quixote '' and '' Gil Bias " 
there is plenty of inn-talk. Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett con- 
stantly speak about them ; and, in their travels, the last two 
tot up the bill, and describe the dinner quite honestly ; whilst 
]\Ir. Sterne becomes sentimental over a cab, and weeps gener- 
ous tears over a donkey. 

How I admire and wonder at the information in Murray's 
Handbooks — wonder how it is got, and admire the travellers 
who get it. For instance, you read : Amiens (please select 
your towns), 60,000 inhabitants. Hotels, &c. — '' Lion d'Or," 
good and clean. '* Le Lion d'Argent,'' so so. '* Le Lion 
Noir," bad, dirty, and dear. Now say, there are three travel- 
lers — three inn-inspectors, who are sent forth by Mr. Murray 
on a great commission, and who stop at every inn in the world. 
The eldest goes to the " Lion d'Or " — capital house, good 
table-d'hote, excellent wine, moderate ^barges. The second 
commissioner tries the '' Silver Lion " — tolerable house, bed, 
dinner, bill and so forth. But fancy Commissioner No. 3 — the 
poor fag, doubtless, and boots of the party. He has to go to 
the '' Lion Noir.'' He knows he is to have a bad dinner — he 
eats it uncomplainingly. He is to have bad wine. He swal- 
lows it, grinding his wretched teeth, and aware that he will be 
unwell in consequence. He knows he is to have a dirty bed, 
and what he is to expect there. He pops out the candle. He 
sinks into those dingy sheets. He delivers over his body to 
the nightly tormentors, he pays %n exorbitant bill, and he 
writes down, '^ Lion Noir, bad, dirty, dear." Next day the 
-commission sets out for Arras, we will s^.y, and they begin 
again : ^* Le Cochon d'Or," '^ Le Cochon d'Argent,'' " Le 
Cochon Noir " — and that is poor Boots's inn, of course. What 



158 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

a life that poor man must lead ! What horrors of dinners he 
has to go through ! What a hide he must have ! And yet not 
impervious ; for unless he is ,bitten, how is he to be able to 
warn others ? No ; on second thoughts, you will perceive that 
he ought to have a very delicate skin. The monsters ought to 
troop to him eagerly, and bite him instantaneously and freely, 
so that he may be able to warn all future handbook buyers of 
their danger. I fancy this man devoting himself to danger, to 
dirt, to bad dinners, to sour wine, to damp beds, to midnight 
agonies, to extortionate bills. I admire him, I thank him. 
Think of this champion, who devotes his body for us — this 
dauntless gladiator going to do battle alone in the darkness, 
with no other armor than a light helmet of cotton, and a lo7'ica 
of calico. I pity and honor him. Go, Spartacus ! Go, de- 
voted man — to bleed, to groan, to suffer — and smile in silence 
as the wild beasts assail thee ! 

How did I come into this talk ? I protest it was the word 
inn set me off — and here is one, the '* Hotel de Belle Vue,''' 
at the Hague, as comfortable, as handsome, as cheerful, as any 
I ever took mine ease in. And the Bavarian beer, my dear 
friend, how good and brisk and light it is ! Take another glass 
— it refreshes and does not stupefy — and then we will sally out, 
and see the town and the park and the pictures. 

The prettiest little brick city, the pleasantest little park to 
ride in, the neatest comfortable people walking about, the canals 
not unsweet, and busy and picturesque with old world life. 
Rows upon rows of houses, built with the neatest little bricks, 
with windows fresh painted, and tall doors polished and carved 
to a nicety. What a pleasant spacious garden our inn has, all 
sparkling with autumn flowers, and bedizened with statues ! 
At the end is a row of trees, and a summer-house, over the 
canal, where you might go and smoke a pipe with Mynheer Van 
Dunck, and quite cheerfully catch the ague. Yesterday, as we 
passed, they were making hay, and stacking it in a barge which 
was lying by the meadow, handy. Round about Kensington 
Palace there are houses, roofs, chimneys, and bricks like these. 
I feel that a Dutchman is a man and a brother. It is very 
funny to read the newspaper, one can understand it somehow. 
Sure it is the neatest, gayest little city — scores and hundreds 
of mansions looking like Cheyne Walk, or the ladies' schools 
about Chiswick and Hackney. # 

Le Gros Lot. — To a few lucky men the chance befalls of 

reaching fame at once, and (if it is of any profit moriticro) re- 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY. 



159 



taining the admiration of the world. Did poor Oliver, when he 
was at Leyden yonder, ever think that he should paint a httle 
picture which should secure him the applause and pity of all 
Europe for a century after? He and Sterne drew the twenty 
thousand prize of fame. The latter had splendid instalments 
during his lifetime. The ladies pressed round him ; the wits 
admired him, the fashion hailed the successor of Rabelais. 
Goldsmith's little gem. was hardly so valued until later days. 
Their works still form the wonder and delight of the lovers of 
English art; and the pictures of the Vicar and Uncle Toby are 
among the masterpieces of our English school. Elere in the 
Hague Gallery is Paul Potter's pale, eager face, and yonder is 
the magnificent work by which the young fellov/ achieved bis 
fame. How did you, so young, come to paint so well } What 
hidden power lay in that weakly lad that enabled him to achieve 
such a wonderful victory ? Could little Mozart, when he was 
five years old, tell you how he came to play those wonderful 
sonatas ? Potter was gone out of the world before he was 
thirty, but left this prodigy (and I know not how many more 
specimens of his genius and skill) behind him. The details of 
this admirable picture are as curious as the effect is admirable 
and complete. The weather being unsettled, and clouds and 
sunshine in the gusty sky, we saw in our little tour numberless 
Paul Potters — the meadows streaked with sunshine and spotted 
with the cattle, the city twinkling in the distance, the thunder- 
clouds glooming overhead. Napoleon carried off the picture 
{vide Murray) amongst the spoils of his bow and spear to 
decorate his triumph of the Louvre. If I were a conquering 
prince, I would have this picture certainly, and the Raphael 
'' Madonna '^ from Dresden, and the Titian *' Assumption '^ 
from Venice, and the matchless Rembrandt of the ''Dissec- 
tion." The prostrate nations would howl with rage as my gen- 
darmes took off the pictures, nicely packed, and addressed 
to " Mr. the Director of my Imperial Palace of the Louvre, 
at Paris. This side uppermost." The Austrians, Prussians, 
Saxons, Italians, &c., should be free to come and visit my 
capital, and bleat with tears before the pictures torn from their 
native cities. Their ambassadors would meekly remonstrate, 
and with faded grins make allusions to the feeling of despair 
occasioned by the absence of the beloved works of art. Bah ! 
I would offer them a pinch of snuff out of my box as I walked 
along my gallery, with their Excellencies cringing after me. 
Zenobia was a fine woman and a queen, but she had to walk in 
Aurelian's triumph. T\iQ procedev^dispeu delicat ? Eii usez vous 



l6o ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

mon cher monsieur I (The marquis says the " Macaba " is deli- 
cious.) What a splendor of color there is in that cloud i 
What a richness, what a freedom of handling, and what a mar- 
vellous precision! I trod upon your Excellency's corn? — a 
thousand pardons. His Excellency grins and declares that he 
rather likes to have his corns trodden on. Were you ever very 
angry w^ith Soult — about that Murillo which we have bought ? 
The veteran loved that picture because it saved the life of a 
fellow-creature — the fellow-creature who hid it, and whom the 
Duke intended to hang unless the picture w^as forthcoming. 

We gave several thousand pounds for it — -how many thou- 
sand .? About its merit is a question of taste which we will not 
here argue. If you choose to place Murillo in the first class of 
painters, founding his claim upon these Virgin altar-pieces, I 
am your humble servant. Tom Moore painted altar-pieces as 
well as Milton, and warbled Sacred Songs and Loves of the 
Angels after his fashion. I wonder did Watteau ever try his- 
torical subjects 1 And as for Greuze, you know that his heads 
will fetch I, coo/., 1,500/., 2,000/. — as much as a Sevres "ca- 
baret '^ of Rose du Barri. If cost price is to be j^our criterion 
of w^orth, what shall we say to that little receipt for 10/. 
for the copyright of *' Paradise Lost,'' which used to hang in 
old Mr. Rogers' room .? When living painters, as frequently 
happens in our days, see their pictures sold at auctions for four 
.or five times the sums which they originally received, are they 
enraged or elated? A hundred years ago the state of the 
picture-market was different : that dreary old Italian stock was 
much higher than at present ; Rembrandt himself, a close man, 
was known to be in difficulties. If ghosts are fond of money 
still, what a wrath his must be at the present vame of his 
works ! 

The Hague Rembrandt is the greatest and grandest of all 
his pieces to my mind. Some of the heads are as sweetly and 
lightly painted as Gainsborough ; the faces not ugly, but deli- 
cate and high-bred ; the exquisite gray tones aie charming to 
mark and study ; the heads not plastered, but painted with a 
free, liquid brush : the result, one of the great victories won by 
this consummate chief, and left for the wonder and delight of 
succeeding ages. 

The humblest volunteer in the ranks of art, who has served 
a campaign or two ever so ingloriously, has at least this good 
fortune of understanding, or fancying he is able to under- 
stand, how the battle has been fought, and how the engaged 
general won it. This is the Rhinelander's most brilliant 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY, i6i 

achievement — victory along the whole line. The *' Night- 
watch" at Amsterdam is magnificent in parts, but on the side 
to the spectator's right, smoky and dim. The ^' Five Masters 
of the Drapers ''' is wonderful for depth, strength, brightness, 
massive power. What words are these to express a picture ! 
to describe a description ! I once saw a moon riding in the 
sky serenely, attended by her sparkling maids of honor, and a 
little lady said, with an air of great satisfaction, ** I inust sketch 
it.^^ Ah, my dear lady, if with an H. B., a Bristol board, and a 
bit of india-rubber, you can sketch the starry firmament on 
high, and the moon in h-er glory, Fmake you my compli- 
menti I can't sketch " The Five Drapers " with any ink or 
pen at present at command — but can look with all my eyes, 
and be thankful to have seen such a masterpiece. 

They say he was a moody, ill-conditioned man, the old 
tenant of the mill. What does he think of the "Vander 
Heist" which hangs opposite his *' Night-watch," and which is 
one of the great pictures of the world ? It is not painted by 
so great a man as Rembrandt ; but there it is — to see it is 
an event of your life. Having beheld it you have lived in 
the year 1648, and celebrated the treaty of Munster. You 
have shaken the hands of the Dutch Guardsmen, eaten from 
their platters, drunk their Rhenish, heard their jokes, as they 
wagged their jolly beards. The Amsterdam Catalogue dis- 
courses thus about it : — a model catalogue : it gives you the 
prices paid, the signatures of the painters, a succinct descrip- 
tion of the work. 

^' This masterpiece represents a banquet of the civic guard, 
which took place on the i8th June, 1648, in the great hall of 
the St. Joris Doele, on the Singel at Amsterdam, to celebrate 
the conclusion of the Peace at Munster. The thirty-five figures 
composing the picture are all portraits. 

" * The Captain Witse ' is placed at the head of the tablej 
and attracts our attention first. He is dressed in black velvet, 
his breast covered with a cuirass, on his head a broad-brimmed 
black hat with white plumes. He is comfortably seated on a 
chair of black oak, with a. velvet cushion, and holds in his left 
hand, supported on his knee, a magnificent drinking horn, sur- 
rounded by a St. George destroying the dragon, and ornamented 
with olive leaves. The captain's features express cordiality 
and good-humor ; he is grasping the hand of * Lieutenant Van 
Wavern ' seated near him, in a habit of dark gray, with lace 
and buttons of gold, lace-collar and wristbands, his feet 
crossed, with boots of yellow leather, with large tops, and gold 

II 



1 6 2 RO UNDABOUT PAPERS. 

spurs, on his head a black hat and dark -brown plumes. Behind 
him, at the centre of the picture, is the standard-bearer, * Jacob 
Banning,' in an easy martial attitude, hat in hand, his right 
hand on his chair, his right leg on his left knee. He holds the 
flag of blue silk, in which the Virgin is embroidered (such a silk ! 
such a flag 1 such a piece of painting !), emblematic of the town 
of Amsterdam. The banner covers his shoulder, and he looks 
towards the spectator frankl}' and complacently. 

*' The man behind Ifim is probably one of the sergeants. 
His head is bare. He wears a cuirass, and yellow gloves, gray 
stockings, and boots with large tops^and kneecaps of cloth. He 
has a napkin on his knees, and in his hand a piece of ham, a 
slice of bread, and a knife. The old man behind is probably, 
' William the DrUxMMEr.' He has his hat in his right hand, 
and in his left a gold-footed wineglass, filled with white wine. 
He wears a red scarf, and a black satin doublet, w^ith little 
slashes of yellow silk. Behind the drummer, tv;o matchlock- 
men are seated at the end of the table. One in a large black 
^habit, a napkin on his knee, a hausse-col of iron, and a linen scarf 
and collar. He is eating with his knife. The other holds a 
long glass of white wine. Four musketeers, with different 
shaped hats, are behind these, one holding a glass, the three 
others with their guns on their shoulders. Other guests are 
placed between the personage who is giving the toast and the 
standard-bearer. One with his hat off, and his hand uplifted, 
is talking to another. The second is carving a fowl. A third 
holds a silver plate ; and another, in the background, a silver 
flagon, from wdiich he fills a cup. The corner behind the cap- 
tain is filled by two seated personages, one of v/hom is peeling 
an orange. Two others are standing, armed with halberts, of 
wdiom one holds a plumed hat. Behind him are three other 
individuals, one of them holding a pewter pot, on w^hich the 
name ' Poock,' the landlord of the 'Hotel Doele,' is engraved. 
At the back, a maid-servant is coming in with a pasty, crowned 
with a turkey. Most of the guests are listening to the captain. 
From an open window in the distance, facades of two houses 
are seen, surmounted by stone figures of sheep." 

There, now you know all about it: now you can go home 
and paint just such another. If you do, do pray remember to 
paint the hands of the figures as they are here depicted : they 
are as wonderful portraits as the faces. None of your slim 
Van Dyke elegancies, which have done duty at the cuffs of so 
many doublets ; but each man with a hand for himself, as with 
a face for himself. I blushed for the coarseness of one of the 



NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLIDAY, 163 

chiefs in this great company, that fellow behind " William the 
Drummer/' splendidly attired, sitting full in the face of the 
public ; and holding a pork bone in his hand. Suppose the 
Saturday Review critic were to come suddenly on this pictui^ ? 
Ah ! what a shock it would give that noble nature ! Why is 
that knuckle of pork not painted out ? at any rate, why is not 
a little fringe of lace painted round it ? or a cut pink paper ? or 
couldn't a smelling-bottle be painted instead, with a crest and 
a gold top, or a cambric pocket-handkerchief, in lieu of the 
horrid pig, with a pink coronet in the corner? or suppose you 
covered the man's hand (which is very coarse and strong), and 
gave him the decency of a kid glove ? But a piece of pork 
in a naked hand? O nerves and eau de Cologne, hide it," 
hide it! 

In spite of this lamentable coarseness, my noble sergeant, 
give me thy hand as nature made it 1 A great, and famous, and 
noble handiwork I have seen here. Not the greatest picture 
in the world — not a work of the highest genius — but a perform- 
ance so great, various, and admirable, so shrev/d of humor, 
so wise of observation, so honest and complete of expression, 
that to have seen it has been a delight, and to remember it 
will be a pleasure for days to come. Well done, Bartholomeus 
Vander Heist ! Brave, meritorious, victorious, happy Barthol- 
omew, to whom it has been given to produce a masterpiece ! 

May I take off my hat and pay a respectful compliment to 
Jan Steen, Esq. ? He is a glorious composer. His humor is 
as frank as Fielding's. Look at his own figure sitting in 
the window-sill yonder, and roaring with laughter! What a 
twinkle in the eyes ! what a mouth \X. is for a song, or a joke, 
or a noggin ! I think the composition in some of Jan's pictures 
amounts to the sublime, and look at them with the same delight 
and admiration which I have felt before works of the very 
highest style. This gallery is admirable — and the city in which 
the gallery is, is perhaps even more wonderful and curious to 
behold than the gallery. 

The first landing at Calais (or, I suppose, on any foreign 
shore) — the first sight of an Eastern city — the first view of 
Venice — and this of Amsterdam, are among the delightful 
shocks which I have had as a traveller. Amsterdam is as good 
as Venice, with a superadded humor and grotesqueness, which 
gives the sight-seer the most singular zest and pleasure. A run 
through Pekin I could hardly fancy to be more odd, strange, 
and yet familiar. This rush, and crowd, and prodigious vitality ; 
this immense swarm of life ; these busy waters, crowding barges, 



1 64 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

swinging drawbridges, piled ancient gables, spacious markets 
teeming with people ; that ever-wonderful Jews^ quarter \ that 
dear old world of painting and the past, yet alive, and throb- 
bing, and palpable — actual, and yet passing before you swiftly 
and strangely as a dream ! Of the many journeys of this Round- 
about life, that drive through Amsterdam is to be specially and 
gratefully remembered. You have never seen the palace of ! 
Amsterdam, my dear sir? Why, there's a marble hall in that, 
palace that will frighten you as much as any hall in Vathek, ov 
a nightmare. At one end of that old, cold, glassy, glittering, 
ghostly, marble hall there stands a throne, on which a white 
marble king ought to sit with his white legs gleaming down 
into the white marble below, and his white eyes looking at 
a great white marble Atlas, who bears on his icy shoulders 
a blue globe .as big as the full moon. If he were not a genie, 
and enchanted, and with a strength altogether hyperatlantean, 
he would drop the moon with a shriek on to the white marble floor, 
and it would splitter into perdition. And the palace would rock 
and heave, and tumble ; and the waters would rise, rise, rise ; 
and the gables sink, sink, sink ; and the barges would rise up 
to the chimneys ; and the water-souchee fishes would flap over 
the Boompjes, where the pigeons and the storks used >o perch; 
and ''the Amster, and the Rotter, and the Saar, and the Op, 
and all the dams of Holland would burst, and the Zuyder Zee 
roll over the dykes ; and you would wake out of your dream, 
and find yourself sitting in your arm-chair. 

Was it a dream ? it seems like one. Have we been to 
Holland ? have we heard the chimes at midnight at Antwerp I 
Were we really away for a week, or have I been sitting up in 
the room dozing, before this stale old desk "^ Here's the desk ; 
yes. But, if it has been a dream, how could I have learned to 
hum that tune out of Dinorah ? Ah, is it that tune, or myself 
that I am humming t If it was a dream, how comes this yellow 
Notice des Tableaux du Musee d'Amsterdam avec fac- 
simile DES MoNOGRAM>.iEs before me, and this signature of 
the gallant 

Yes, indeed, it was a delightful little holiday ; it lasted a 
whole week. With the exception of that little pint of amari 
aliquid at Rotterdam, we were all very happy. W^e might have 



NIL NISI BO NUM. 1 6 5 

gone on being happy for whoever knows how many days more ? 
a week more, ten days more : who knows how long that dear 
teetotum happiness can be made to spin without toppling over ? 

But one of the party had desired letters to be sent poste 
restante, Amsterdam. The post-office is hard by that awful 
palace where the Atlas is, and which we really saw\ 

There was only one letter, you see. Only one chance of 
finding us. There it was. " The post has only this moment 
come in,'' says the smirking commissioner. And he hands «^ver 
the paper, thinking he has done something clever. 

Before the letter had been opened, I could read Come back, 
as clearly as if it had been painted on the w^all. It was all 
over. The spell was broken. The sprightly little holiday fairy 
that had frisked and gambolled so kindly beside us for eight 
days of sunshine — or rain which was as cheerful as sunshine- — 
gave a parting piteous look, and whisked away and vanished. 
And yonder scuds the postman, and here is the old desk 



NIL NISI BONUM, 



Almost the last words w^hich Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, 
his biographer, w^ere, " Be a good man, my dear ! '' and with 
the last flicker of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell 
to his family, and passed away blessing them. 

Tw^o men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the 
Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time.^ Ere a few weeks are 
over, many a critic's pen will be at work, reviewing their lives, 
and passing judgment on their works. This is no review, or 
history, or criticism : only a word in testimony of respect and 
regard from a man of letters, who owes to his own professional 
labor the honor of becoming acquainted with these two eminent 
literar}^ men. One was the first ambassador whom the New 
World of Letters sent to the Old. He w^as born almost with 
the republic ; the pater patricB had laid his hand on the child's 
head. He bore Washington's name : he came amongst us 
bringing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, sm.iling good- 
will. His new country (which some people here might be dis- 
posed to regard rather superciliously) could send us, as he 
showed in his ov/n person, a gentleman, who, though himself 
born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, 

* Washington Irving died, November 28, 1859 ; Lord Macaulay died, December 28, 

185^ 



l66 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

witty, quiet ; and, socially, the equal of the most refined Euro- 
peans. If Irving's welcome in England was a kind one, was it 
not also gratefully remembered ? If he ate our salt, did he not 
pay us with a thankful heart ? Who can calculate the amount 
of friendliness and good feeling for our country which this 
writer's generous and untiring regard for us disseminated in 
his own ? His books are read by millions * of his countr}^men, 
whom he has taught to love England, and why to love her. It 
would have been easy to speak otherwise than he did : to 
inflame national rancors, which, at the time when he first be- 
came known as a public writer, war had just renewed : to cry 
down the old civilization at the expense of the new : to point 
out our faults, arrogance, shortcomings, and give the republic 
to infer how much she was the parent state's superior. There 
are writers enough in the United States, honest and otherwise, 
who preach that kind of doctrine. But the good Irving, the 
peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness in his heart, 
and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with ex- 
traordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, 
a hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), 
he was a messenger of good-will and peace between his country 
and ours. - " See, friends! " he seems to say, "these English 
are not so wicked, rapacious, callous, proud, as you have been 
taught to believe them. I went amongst them a humble man ; 
won my way by my pen ; and, when known, found every hand 
held out to me with kindliness and welcome. Scott is a great 
man, you acknowledge. Did not Scott's King of England give 
a gold medal to him, and another to me, your countryman, and 
a stranger 1 " 

Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the his- 
tory of the feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his 
return to his native country from Europe. He had a national 
welcome ; he stammered in his speeches, hid himself in con- 
fusion, and the people loved him all the better. He had 
worthily represented America in Europe. In that young com- 
munity a man who brings home with him abundant European 
testimonials is still treated with respect (I have found American 
writers, of wide-world reputation, strangely solicitous about the 
opinions of quite obscure British critics, and elated or depressed 
by their judgments) ; and Irving went home medalled by the 
King, diplomatized by the University, crowned and honored 
and admired. He had not in any way intrigued for his honors, 

♦ See his Lifeva the most remarkable Dictionary a/ Author St published lately at Philr 
adelphia, by Mr. Alibone. 



NIL NISI BONUM. 167 

he had fairly won them ; and, in living's instance, as in others, 
the old country was glad and eager to pay them. 

In America the love and regard for Irving was a national 
sentiment. Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are 
carried on by the press with a rancor and fierceness against 
individuals which exceed British, almost Irish, virulence. It 
seemed to me, during a year's travel in the country, as if no 
one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All men held their hand from 
that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had the good fortune to 
see him at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washing- 
ton,* and remarked how in every place he was honored and 
welcome. Every large city has its " Irving House." The 
country takes pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate 
of his own charming little domain on the beautiful Hudson 
River was forever swinging before visitors who came to him. 
He shut out no one.t I had seen many pictures of his house, 
and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated with 
a not unusual American exaggeration. It was but a pretty 
little cabin of a place ; the gentleman of the press who took 
notes of the place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might 
have visited the whole house in a couple of minutes. 

And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. 
Irving's books were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, mil- 
lions, when his profits were known to be large, and the habits 
of life of the good old bachelor were notoriously modest and 
simple ? He had loved once in his life. The lady he loved 
died ; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to re- 
place her. I can't say how much the thought of that fidelity 
has touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after 
life add to the pathos of that untold stor}^ ? To grieve always 
was not in his nature ; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all 
the world in to condole with him and bemoan it. Deep and 
quiet he lays the love of his heart, and buries it ; and grass 
and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due time. 

Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, be- 

* At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer, which Mr- Filmore 
and General Pierce, the President and President Elect, were also kind enough to attend 
together. " Two Kings of Brentford smelling at one rose," says Irving, looking up with 
his good-humored smile. 

t Mr. Irving described tome with that humor and good-humor which he always kept, 
how, amongst other visitors, a member of the British press who had carried his distinguished 
pen to America (where he employed it in vilifvang his own country') came to Sunnyside, 
mtroduced hirnsejf to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two days described 
Mr. Irv-ing, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner of dozing afterwards, in a New 
York paper. On another occasion, Irving said, laughing, ** Two persons came to me, and 
one held me in conversation whilst the other miscreant took ray portrait ! " 



l68 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

cause there was a great number of people to occupy them. He 
could only afford to keep one old horse (which, lazy and aged 
as it was, managed once or twice to run aw^ay with that careless 
old horseman). He could only afford to give plain sherry to 
that amiable British paragraph-monger from New York, w4io 
saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and 
fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him. 
Irving could only live very modestly, because the wnfeless, 
childless man had a number of children to whom he was as a 
father. He had as many as nine nieces, I am told — I saw tw^o 
of these ladies at his house— with all of whom the dear old 
man had shared the produce of his labor and genius. 

^' Be a good 7nan, my dearT One can't but think of these 
last words of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and 
tested the value of worldly success, admiration, prosperity. 
Was Indng not good, and, of his works, was not his life the 
best part ? . In his family, gentle, generous, good-humored, af- 
fectionate, self-denying : in society, a delightful example of 
complete gentlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity ; never 
obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to ihe base and 
mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and other 
countries) ; eage^ to acknowledge every contemporary's merit ; 
always kind and affable to the young members of his calling ; 
in his professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately 
honest and grateful ; one of the most charming masters of our 
lighter language ; the constant friend to us and our nation ; to 
men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, 
but as an examplar of goodness, probity, and pure life : — I don't 
know what sort of testimonial v/ill be raised to him in his own 
country, where generous and enthusiastic acknowledgment of 
American merit is never wanting : but Irving w^as in our ser- 
vice as well as theirs ; and as they have placed a stone at 
Greenwich yonder in memory of that gallant young Bellot, who 
shared the perils and fate of some of our Arctic seamen, I 
would like to hear of some memorial raised by English writers 
and friends of letters in affectionate remembrance of the dear 
and good Washington Irving. 

As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some 
few most dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring 
readers deplore, our republic has already decreed his statue, 
and he must have known that he had earned this posthumous 
honor. He is not a poet and a man of letters merely, but 
citizen, statesman, a great British w^orthy. Almost from the first 
moment when he appears, amongst boys, amongst college stu- 



NIL NISI BONUM 169 

dents, amongst men, he is marked, and takes rank as a great 
Englishman. All sorts of successes are easy to him : as a lad 
he goes down into the arena with others, and wins all the prizes 
to which he has a mind. A place in the senate is straightway 
offered to the young m^^n. He takes his seat there ; he speaks, 
when so minded, without party anger or intrigue, but not with- 
out party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. 
Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator 
That he may have leisure and means to pursue his darling 
studies, he absents himself for a w^hile, and accepts a richly-re- 
munerative post in the East. As learned a man may live in a 
cottage or a college common-room ; but it always seemed to 
me that ample means and recognized rank were Macaulay's 
as of right. Years ago there was a wretched outcry raised be- 
cause Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where 
he was staying. Immortal gods 1 Was this man not a fit guest 
for any palace in the world 1 or a fit companion for any man or 
w^oman in it t I dare say, after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court 
officials and footmen sneered at Napoleon for dating from 
Schonbrunn. But that miserable " Windsor Castle " outcry is 
an echo out of fast-retreating old-w^orld remembrances. The 
place of such a natural chief w^as amongst the first of the land ; 
and that country is best, according to our British notion at 
least, w^here the man of eminence has the best chance of in- 
vesting his genius and intellect. 

If a company of giants w^ere got together, very likely one or 
two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incon- 
testable superiority of the very tallest of the party : and so I 
have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's 
superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, and 
so forth. Now that that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, 
will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance 
to listen? To remember the talk is to w^onder : to think not 
only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles 
he had stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. 
Almost on the last day I had the fortune to see him, a conver- 
sation happened suddenly to spring up about senior wranglers, 
and what they had done in after life. To the almost terror of 
the persons present, Macaulay began w-ith the senior wrangler 
of 1 80 1-2-3-4, and so on, giving the name of each, and rela- 
ting his subsequent career and rise. Everyman who has known 
him has his story regarding that astonishing memor}'. It may 
be that he was not ill-pleased that you should recognize it ; but 
to those prodigious intellectual feats, which were so easy to 



jyo ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

him, who would grudge his tribute to homage ? His talk was, 
in a word, admirable, and we admired it. 

Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Ma- 
caulay, up to the day when the present lines are v/ritten (the 
9th January), the reader should not deny himself the pleasure of 
looking especially at two. It is a good sign of the times when 
such articles as these (I mean the articles in The Times and 
Saturday Review) appear in our public prints about our public 
men. They educate us, as it were, to admire rightly. An un- 
instructed person in a museum or at a concert may pass by 
without recognizing a picture or a passage of music, which the 
connoisseur by his side may show him is- a masterpiece of har- 
mony, or a wonder of artistic skill. After reading these pa- 
pers you like and respect more the person you have admired 
so much already. And so with regard to Macaulay's style 
there may be faults of course — what critic can't point them out ? 
But for the nonce we are not talking about faults : we want to say 
nil nisi bo7ium. Well — take at hazard any three pages of the 
" Essays '^ or " History ; " — and, glimmering below the stream 
of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two, 
three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, 
literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this 
epithet used 1 Whence is that simile drawn .^ How does he 
manage in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to in- 
dicate a landscape ? Your neighbor, who has his reading, and 
his little stock of literature stowed away in his mind, shall de- 
tect more points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only 
the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but 
the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this 
great scholar. He reads twent}' books to write a sentence ; he 
travels a hundred miles to make a line of description. 

Many Londoners — not all — have seen the British Museum 
Library. I speak a cceur ouvert, and j)ray the kindly reader to 
bear with me. I have seen all sorts of domes of Peters and 
Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon, — what not ? — and have been struck by 
none of them so much. as by that catholic dome in Bloomsbury, 
under which our million volumes are housed. What peace, what 
love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what 
generous kindness for you and me, are here spread out ! It 
seems to me one cannot sit down in that place without a heart 
full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the 
table, and to have thanked heaven for this my English birth- 
right, freely to partake of these bountiful books, and to speak 
the truth I find there. Under the dome which held Macaulay's 



NIL NISI BONUM. 171 

brain, and from which his solemn eyes lookea out on the world 
but a fortnight since, w^hat a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store 
of learning was ranged ! what strange lore would he not fetch 
for you at your bidding 1 A volume of law, or history^, a book 
of poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself who forgot 
nothing), a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke 
to him once about ** Clarissa." *' Not read ' Clarissa ! ^ " he 
cried out. " If you have once thoroughly entered on * Clarissa ' 
and are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in India 
I passed one hot season at the hills, and there were the Govern- 
or-General, and the Secretary of Government, and the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and their wives. I had * Clarissa ' with me : 
and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a 
passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, 
and her scoundrelly Lovelace ! The Governor's wife seized 
the book, and the Secretary waited for it, and the Chief Justice 
could not read it for tears ! " He acted the whole scene : he 
paced up and down the " Athenaeum ^' librar}^ : I dare say he 
could have spoken pages of the book — of that book, and of 
what countless piles of others ! 

In this little paper let us keep to the text of 7iil nisi bonum. 
One paper I have read regarding Lord jMacaulay says *'he had 
no heart." Why, a man's books may not always speak the 
truth, but they speak his mind in spite of himself : and it seems 
to me this man's heart is beating through every page he penned. 
He is always in a stonn of revolt and indignation against 
wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic resistance ; how 
he backs and applauds freedom struggling for its own ; how he 
hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful ; how he 
recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it ! The critic 
who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had 
none : and two men more generous, and more loving, and more 
hating, and more partial, and more noble, do not live in our 
history. Those who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably 
tender and generous,* and affectionate he was. It was not his 
business to bring his family before the theatre footlights, and 
call for bouquets from the gallery as he wept over them. 

If any young man of letters reads this little sermon — and to 
him, indeed, it is addressed — I would say to him, "Bear Scott's 
words in your mind, and ^he good^ my dear J ^^ Here are two 
literary men gone to their account, and laus Deo, as far as we 

* Since the above was written, I have been informed that it has been found, on examin- 
ing Lord Macaulay- S: papers, that he was in the habit of giving away more iJuxn a fourth 
fari of his ann\ial income. 



172 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



know, it is fair, and open, and clean. Here Is no need of 
apologies for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which 
would have been virtuous but for unavoidable, &c. Here are 
two examples of men most differently gifted : each pursuing his 
calling ; each speaking his truth as God bade him ; each honest 
in his life ; just and irreproachable in his dealings ; dear to his 
friends ; honored by his country ; beloved at his fireside. It 
has been the fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness 
and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with an 
immense kindliness, respect, affection. . It may not be our 
chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or 
rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these men are 
rewards paid to our service. We may not win the baton or 
epaulettes ; but God give us strength to guard the honor of 
the flag] 



ON HALF A LOAR 



A LETTER TO MESSRS. BROADWAY, BATTERY AND CO., OF NEW 
YORK, BANKERS. 

Is it all over t May we lock up the case of instruments ? 
Have we signed our wills ; settled up our affairs ; pretended to 
talk and rattle quite cheerfully to the women at dinner, so that 
they should not be alarmed ; sneaked away under some pretext, 
and looked at the children sleeping in their beds with their little 
unconscious thumbs in their mouths, and a flush on the soft- 
pillowed cheek ; made every arrangement with Colonel Mac- 
Turk, who acts as our second, and knows the other principal a 
great deal too well to think he will ever give in ; invented a 
monstrous figment about going to shoot pheasants with Mac in 
the morning, so as to soothe the anxious fears of the dear mis- 
tress of the house ; early as the hour appointed for the — the 
little affair — was, have we been awake hours and hours sooner; 
risen before daylight, with a faint hope, perhaps, that MacTurk 
might have come to some arrangement with the other side ; at 
seven o'clock (confound his punctuality !) heard his cab-wheel 
at the door, and let him in looking perfectly trim, fresh, jolly, 
and well shaved ; driven off with him in the cold morning, after 
a very unsatisfactorj^ breakfast of coffee and stale bread-and* 



OA' HALF A LOAF, 173 

butter (which choke, somehow, in the swallowing) ; driven oil 
to Wormwood Scrubs in the cold, muddy, misty, moonshiny 
morning ; stepped out of the cab, where Mac has bid the man 
to halt on a retired spot in the common ; in one minute more, 
seen another cab arrive, from which descend two gentlemen, 
one of whom has a case like MacTurk's under his arm ; — looked 
round and round the solitude^ and seen not one single sign of 
a policeman — no, no more than in a row in London ; — depre- 
cated the horrible necessity which drives civilized men to the 
use of powder and bullet ; — taken ground as firmly as may be, 
and looked on whilst Mac is neatly loading his weapons ; and 
when all ready, and one looked for the decisive One, Two, 
Three — have we even heard Captain O'Toole (the second of 
the other principal) walk up, and say : " Colonel MacTurk, I 
am desired by my principal to declare at this eleventh — this 
twelfth hour, that he is willing to own that he sees he has been 
WRONG in the dispute which has arisen between him and your 
friend ; that he apologizes for offensive expressions which he 
has used in the heat of the quarrel ; and regrets the course he 
has taken?" If something- like this has happened to you, 
however great your courage, you have been glad not to fight ; — 
however accurate your aim, you have been pleased not to fire. 
On the sixth day of January in this year sixty-two, what 
hundreds of thousands — I may say, what millions of English- 
men, were in the position of the personage here sketched — 
Christian men, I hope, shocked at the dreadful necessity of 
battle ; aware of the horrors which the conflict must produce, 
and yet feeling that the moment was come, and that there was 
no arbitrament left but that of steel and cannon ! My reader, 
perhaps, has been in America. If he has, he knows what good 
people are to be found there ; how polished, how generous, how 
gentle, how courteous. But it is not the voices of these you 
hear in the roar of hate, defiance, folly, falsehood, which comes 
to us across the Atlantic. You can't hear gentle voices ; very 
many who could speak are afraid. Men must go forward, or 
be crushed by the maddened crowd behind them. I suppose 
after the perpetration of that act of — what shall we call it.^^ — of 
sudden war, w^iich Wilkes did, and Everett approved, most of 
us believed that battle was inevitable. Who has not read the 
American papers for six weeks past? Did you ever think the 
United States Government would give up those Commissioners? 
I never did, for my part. It seems to me the United States 
Government have done the most courageous* act of the war. 
Before that act was done, what an excitement prevailed in 



1^4 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

London! In every Club there was a parliament sitting in 

permanence : in every domestic gathering this subject was sure 

to form a main part of the talk. Of course I have seen many 

people who have travelled in America, and heard them on this 

matter— friends of the South, friends of the North, friends of 

peace, and American stockholders in plenty. — "They will never 

give up the men, sir,'' that was the opinion on all sides; and, if 

they would not, we knew what was to haj^pen. 

For weeks past this nightmare of war has been riding us. 

The City was already gloomy enough. When a great domestic 

grief and misfortune visits the chief person of the State, the 

heart of the people, too, is sad and awe-stricken. It might be 

this sorrow and trial were but presages of greater trials and 

sorrow to come. What if the sorrow of w^ar is to be added to 

the other calamity.^ Such forebodings have formed the theme 

of many a man's talk, and darkened many a fireside. Then 

came the. rapid orders for ships to arm and troops to depart. 

How manv of us have had to sav farewell to friends whom 
.' ^ ^ ^ > 

duty called away with their regiments ; on whom we strove to 
look cheerfully, as we shook their hands, it might be for the 
last time ; and whom our thoughts depicted, treading the snows 
of the immense Canadian frontier, where their intrepid little 
band might have to face the assaults of other enemies than 
winter and rough weather ! I went to a play one night, and 
protest I hardly know what was the entertainment which passed 
before my eyes. In the next stall was an American gentleman, 
who knew me. " Good heavens, sir," I thought, "is it decreed 
that you and I are to be authorized to murder each other next 
week j that my people shall be bombarding your cities, destroy- 
ing your navies, making a hideous desolation of your coast ; 
that our peaceful frontiers shall be subject to fire, rapine, 
and murder.?" "They will never give up the men," said the 
Englishman. " They will never give up the men," said the 
American. And the Christmas piece which the actors were 
playing proceeded like a piece in a dream. To make the grand 
comic performance doubly comic, my neighbor presently in- 
formed me how one of the best friends I had in America — the 
most hospitable, kindly, amiable of men, from whom I had 
twice received the warmest welcome and the most delightful 
hospitality — was a prisoner in Fort Warren, on charges by 
which his life perhaps might be risked. I think that was the 
most dismal Christmas fun which these eyes ever looked on. 

Carry out that notion a little farther, and depict ten thou- 
sand, a hundred thousand homes in England saddened by the 



ON HALF A LOAF. 



175 



thought of the comino: calamity, and oppressed by the pervad- 
ing gloom. My next-door neighbor perhaps has parted wvh 
her son. Now the ship in which he is, with a thousand brave 
comrades, is ploughing through the stormy midnight oceari. 
Presently (under the flag we know of) the thin red line in which 
her boy forms a speck, is winding its way through the vast 
Canadian snows. Another neighbor's boy is not gone, but is 
expecting orders to sail ; and some one else, besides the circle 
at home maybe, is in prayer and terror, thinking of the sum- 
mons which calls the young sailor away. By firesides modest 
and splendid, all over the three^ kingdoms, that sorrow is keep- 
ino; watch, and myriads of hearts beating with that thought, 
** Will they give up the men ? " 

I don't know how, on the first day after the capture of the 
Southern Commissioners was announced, a rumor got abroad 
in London that the taking of the men was an act according to 
law, of which our nation could take no notice. It was said 
that the law authorities had so declared, and a very noble tes- 
timony to the loyalty of Englishmen, I think, was shown by 
the instant submission of hi^h-spirited gentlemen, most keenly 
feeling that the nation had been subject to a coarse outrage, 
who were silent when told that the law was with. the aggressor. 
The relief which presently came, when, after a pause of a day, 
we found that law was on our side, was indescribable. The 
nation might then take notice of this insult to its honor. Never 
were people more eager than ours when they found they had a 
right to reparation. 

I have talked during the last week with many English 
holders of American securities, who, of course, have been 
aware of the threat held over them, '-' England," says the 
Neiu York Herald^ ** cannot afford to go to war with us, for six 
hundred millions' worth of American stock is owned by British 
subjects, which, in event of hostilities, would be confiscated ; 
and we now call upon the Companies not to take it off their 
hands on any terms. Let its forfeiture be held over E^igland 
as a weapon in terroreyn, British subjects have two or three 
hundred millions of dollars invested in shipping and other 
property in the United States. All this property, together with 
the stocks, would be seized, amounting to nine hundred millions 
of dollars. Will England incur this tremendous loss for a 
mere abstraction ? " 

Whether '* a mere abstraction " here means the abstraction 
of the two Southern Commissioners from under our flag, or 
the abstract idea of injured honor, which seems ridiculous to 



fj6 ^O UND ABOUT PAPERS. 

the Herald^ it is needless to ask. I have spoken v/ith many 
men who have money invested in the States, but I declare I 
have not met one English gentleman whom the publication of 
this threat has influenced for a moment. Our people have 
nine hundred millions of dollars invested in the United States, 
have they ? And the Herald '^ calls upon the Companies " not 
to take any of this debt off our hands. Let us, on our side, 
entreat the English press to give this announcement every 
publicity. Let us do everything in our power to make this 
'* call upon the Americans " well known in England. I hope 
English newspaper editors will print it, and print it again and 
again. It is not we who say this of American citizens, but 
American citizens who say this of themselves. " Bull is odious. 
We can't bear Bull. He is haughty, arrogant, a braggart, and 
a blusterer ; and we can't bear brag and bluster in our modest 
and decorous country. We hate Bull, and if he quarrels with 
us on a point in which we are. in the wrong, we have goods of 
of his in our custody, and we will rob him ! " Suppose your 
London banker -saying to you, '* Sir, I have always thought your 
manners disgusting, and your arrogance insupportable. You 
dare to complain of my conduct because I have wrongfully 
imprisoned Jones. My answer to your vulgar interference is, 
that I confiscate your balance ! " 

What wQuld be an English merchant's character after a few 
such transactions ? It is not improbable that the moralists of 
the ITera Id w'owld. call him a rascal. Why have the United States 
been paying seven, eight, ten per cent, for money for years 
past, when the same commodity can be got elsewhere at half 
that rate of interest ? Why, because though among the richest 
proprietors in the world, creditors were not sure of them. So 
the States have had to pay eighty millions yearly for the use 
of money which would cost other borrowers but thirty. Add 
up this item of extra interest alone for a dozen years, and see 
what a prodigious penalty the States have been paying for 
repudiation here and there, for sharp practice, for doubtful 
credit. Suppose the peace is kept between us, the remem- 
brance of this last threat alone will cost the States millions 
and millions more. If they must have money, we must have a 
greater interest to insure our jeopardized capital. Do Ameri- 
can Companies want to borrow money — as want to borrow they 
will .^ Mr. Brown, show the gentlemen that extract from the 
JVfw York Herald, w^hich declares that the United St^es will 
confiscate private property in the event of a war. As the 
country newspapers say, " Please, country papers, copy this 



ON HALF A LOAF, 177 

paragraph/* And, gentlemen in America, when the honor of 
your nation is called in question, please to remember that it is 
the American press which glories in announcing that you are 
prepared to be rogues. 

And when this war has drained uncounted hundreds of 
millions more out of the United States exchequer, will they 
be richer or more inclined to pay debts, or less willing to evade 
them, or more popular with their creditors, or niore likely to 
get money from men whom they deliberately announce that 
they will cheat ? I have not followed the Herald on the '' stone- 
ship " question— that great naval victory appears to me not 
less horrible and wicked than suicidal. Block the harbors for- 
ever ; destroy the inlets of the commerce of the world ; perish 
cities, — so that we may wreak an injury on them. It is the 
talk of madmen, but not the less wicked. The act injures the 
whole Republic ; but it is perpetrated. It is to deal harm to 
ages hence ; but it is done. The Indians of old used to burn 
women and their unborn children. The stone-ship business is 
Indian warfare. And it is performed by men who tell us every 
week that they are at the head of civilization, and that the Old 
World is decrepit, and cruel, and barbarous as compared to 
theirs. 

The same politicians who throttle commerce at its neck, and 
threaten to confiscate trust-money, say that w4ien the war is 
over, and the South is subdued, then the turn of the old 
country will come, and a direful retribution shall be taken for 
our conduct. This has been the cry all through the war. 
*'We should have conquered the South," says an American 
paper which I read this very day, "but for England." Was 
there ever such puling heard from men who have an army of a 
million, and who turn and revile a people who have stood as 
aloof from their contest as we have from the war of Troy ? Or 
is it an outcry made with malice prepense ? And is the song of 
the New York Thnes a variation of the Herald tune ? — '' The 
conduct of the British, in folding their arms and taking no part 
in the fight, has been so base that it has caused the prolongation 
of the war, and occasioned a prodigious expense on our part. 
Therefore, as we have British property in our hands, we, &c., 
&c." The lamb troubled the water dreadfully, and the wolf, in 
a righteous indignation, " confiscated " him. Of course we have 
heard that at an undisturbed time Great Britain would never 
have dared to press its claim for redress. Did the United 
States v/ait until we were at peace with France before they went 
to war with us last ? Did Mr. Seward yield the claim which he 

12 



lyS ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

confesses to be just, until he himself was menaced with war? 
How long were the Southern gentlemen kept in prison ? What 
caused them to be set free ? and did the Cabinet of Washington 
see its error before or after the demand for redress ? * The 
captor was feasted at Boston, and the captives in prison hard 
by. If the wrong-doer was to be punished, it was Captain Wilkes 
who ought to have gone into limbo. At any rate, as " the Cab- 
inet of Washington could not give its approbation to the com- 
mander of the ' San Jacinto,' " why were the men not sooner 
set free ? To sit at the Tremont House, and hear the captain 
after dinner give his opinion on international law, would have 
been better sport for the prisoners than the grim salle-a-mafiger 
at Fort Warren. 

I read in the commercial news brought by the " Teutonia," 
and published m London on the present 13th January, that the 
pork market was generally quiet on the 29th December last ; 
that lard, though with more activity, was heavy and decidedly 
lower ; and at Philadelphia, whiskey is steady and stocks firm. 
Stocks are firm : that is a comfort for the English holders, 
and the confiscating process recommended by the Herald is 
at least deferred. But presently comes an announcement which 
is not quite so cheering : — ^* The Saginaw Central Railway 
Company (let us call it) has postponed its January dividend 
on account of the disturbed condition of public affairs.'' 

A la bonne heure. The bond and shareholders of the 
Saginaw must look for loss and depression in times of war. 
This is one of war's dreadful taxes and necessities ; and all 
sorts of innocent people must suffer by the misfortune. The 
corn was high at Waterloo when a hundred and fifty thousand 
men came and trampled it down on a Sabbath morning. There 
was no help for that calamity, and the Belgian farmers lost their 
crops for the year. Perhaps I am a farmer myself — an inno- 
cent colonics ;\xiA instead of being able to get to church with 
my family, have to see squadrons of French dragoons thunder- 
ing upon my barley, and squares of English infantry forming 

* •* At the beginning of December the British fleet on the West Indian station mounted 
850 guns, and comprised five hners, ten first-class frigates, and seventeen powerful corvettes. 

* * * In little more than a month the fleet available for operations on the American shore 
had been more than doubled. The reinforcements prepared at the various dockyards in- 
cluded two line-of-battle ships, twenty-nine magnificent frieates — such as the ' Shannon/ the 

* Sutlej,' the ' Euryalus,' the * Orlando,' the ^ Galatea ; * eight corvettes, armed like the 
frigates in part, with loo and 40-pounder Armstrong guns ; and the two tremendous iron- 
cased ships, the 'Warrior' and the 'Black Prince ; ' and their smaller sisters the 'Resist- 
ance ' and the ' Defence.' There was work to be done which might have delayed the com- 
mission of a few of these ships for some weeks longer ; biit if the United States had chosen 
war instead of peace, the blockade of their coasts would have been supported by a steam fleet 
of more than sixty splendid ships, armed with 1,800 guns, many of them of the heaviest and 
inost efEeetive kind." — SaU^rda^' Review: Jan. 11. 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 



179 



and trampling all over my oats. (By the way, in writing of 
" Panics," an ingenious writer in the Atlantic Magazine says 
that the British panics at Waterloo were frequent and notorious). 
Well, I am a Belgian peasant, and I see the British running 
away and the French cutting the fugitives down. What have I 
done that these men should be kicking down my peaceful har- 
vest for me, on which I counted to pay my rent, to feed my 
horses, my household, my children ? It is hard. But it is the 
fortune of w^ar. But suppose the battle over ; the Frenchman 
says, " You scoundrel ! why did you not take a part with me ? 
and why did you stand like a double-faced traitor looking on ? 
I should have won the battle but for you. And I hereby con- 
fiscate the farm you stand on, and you and your family may go 
to the workhouse." 

The New York press holds this argument over English 
people in ierrorem, ^* We Americans may be ever so wrong in 
the matter in dispute, but if you push us to a war, we will 
confiscate your English property." Very good. It is peace 
now. Confidence of course is restored between us. Our 
eighteen hundred peace commissioners have no occasion to 
open their mouths ; and the little question of confiscation is 
postponed. Messrs. Batter}^, Broadway and Co., of New York, 
have the kindness to sell my Saginaws for what they will 
fetch. I shall lose half my loaf very likely ; but for the sake of 
a quiet life, let us give up a certain quantity of farinaceous 
food ; and half a loaf, you know^, is better than no bread at all. 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE,— A STORY A LA 

MODE. 

Part I. 

Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal 
poem of your Blind Bard, (to whose sightless orbs no doubl: 
Glorious Shapes were apparent, and Visions Celestial,) how 
Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright Visitors who hovered 
round their Eden — 

* Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.' 

" * How often,' says Father Adam, * from the steep of echo- 
ing hill or thicket, have we heard celestial voices to the midnight 



l8o ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

air, sole, or responsive to each other's notes, singing ! ' After 
the Act of Disobedience, when the erring pair from Eden tooTc 
their soUtary way, and went forth to toil and trouble on common 
earth — though the Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you 
cannot say they w^ere gone. It was not that the Bright Ones 
w^ere absent, but that the dim eyes of rebel man no longer 
could see them. In your chamber hangs a picture of one whom 
you never knew, but whom you have long held in tenderest 
regard, and who was painted for you by a friend of mine, the 
Knight of Plympton. She communes with you. She smiles on 
you. When your spirits are lov/, her bright eyes shine on you 
and cheer you. Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you. 
She never fails to soothe you with her speechless prattle. You 
love her. She is alive with you. As you extinguish your candle 
and turn to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she .not there 
still smiling 1 As you lie in the night awake, and thinking of 
your duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil oppressing the 
busy, weary, wakeful brain as with a remorse, the crackling fire 
flashes up for a moment in the grate, and she is there, your 
little Beauteous Maiden, smiling with her sweet eyes 1 When 
moon is down, when fire is out, when curtains are drawn, when 
lids are closed, is she not there, the little Beautiful One, though 
invisible, present and smiling still } Friend, the Unseen 
Ones are round about us. Does it not seem as if the time were 
drawing near when it shall be given to men to behold them ? '' 

The print of which my friend spoke, and which, indeed, 
hangs in my room, though he has never been there, is that 
charming little winter piece of Sir Joshua, representing the 
little Lady Caroline Montague, afterwards Duchess of Buc- 
cleuch. She is represented as standing in the midst of a winter 
landscape, wrapped in muff and cloak ; and she looks out of 
her picture with a smile so exquisite that a Herod could not 
see her without being charmed. 

" I beg your pardon, Mr. Pinto,'' I said to the person with 
whom I was conversing. (I wonder, by the way, that I was 
not surprised at his knowing how fond I am of this print.) 
"You spoke of the Knight of Plympton. Sir Joshua died, 
1792 : and you say he was your dear friend 1 " 

As I spoke I chanced to look at Mr. Pinto ; and then it 
suddenly struck me : Gracious powers ! Perhaps you are a 
hundred years old, now I think of it. You look more than a 
hundred. Yes, you may be a thousand years old for what I 
know. Your teeth are false. One eye is evidently false. Can 
I say that the other is not ? If a man's age may be calculated 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. l8i 

by the rings round his eyes, this man may be as old as Methu- 
saleh. He has no beard. He wears a large curly glossy brown 
wig, and his eyebrows are painted a deep olive-green. It was 
odd to hear this man, this walking mummy, talking sentiment, 
in these queer old chambers in Shepherd's Inn. 

Pinto passed a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his awful 
white teeth, and kept his glass eye steadily fixed on me. ** Sir 
Joshua's friend ? " said he (you perceive, eluding my direct 
question). " Is not every one that knows his pictures Rey- 
nolds's friend t Suppose I tell you that I have been in his 
painting room scores of times, and that his sister The has 
made me tea, and his sister Toffy has made coffee for me ? 
You will only say I am an old ombog." (Mr. Pinto, I re- 
marked, spoke all languages with an accent equally foreign.) 
"Suppose I tell you that I knew Mr. Sam Johnson, and did not 
like him .? that I was at that very ball at Madame Cornells', 
which you hav^ mentioned in one of your little — what do you 
call them ? — bah ! my memory begins to fail me — in one of 
your little Whirligig Papers t Suppose I tell you that Sir 
Joshua has been here, in this very room t " 

** Have you, then, had these apartments for — more — than 
— seventy years ? '' I asked. 

" They look as if they had not been swept for that time — 
don't they ? Hey ? I did not say that I had them for seventy 
years, but that Sir Joshua has visited me here." 

"When t " I asked, eyeing the man sternly, for I began to 
think he was an impostor. 

He answered me with a glance still more stern : " Sir 
Joshua Reynolds was here this very morning, with Angelica 
Kaufmann and Mr. Oliver Goldschmidt. He is still very much 
attached to Angelica, who still does not care for him. Because 
he is dead (and I was in the fourth mourning coach at his fu- 
neral), is that any reason why he should not come back to earth 
again ? My good sir, you are laughing at me. He has sat 
many a time on that very chair which you are occupying. 
There are several spirits in the room now, whom you cannot 
see. Excuse me." Here he turned round as if he were ad- 
dressing somebody, and began rapidly speaking a language un- 
known to me. " It is Arabic," he said ; " a bad patois I own. 
I learned it in Barbary, when I was a prisoner amongst the 
Moors. In anno 1609, bin ick aldusghekledt gheghaen. Ha ! 
you doubt me : look at me well. At least I am like " 

Perhaps some of my readers remember a paper of which 
the figure of a jnan carrying a barrel formed the initial letter, 



l82 ROUN-DABOUT PAPERS, 

and which I copied from an old spoon now in my possession. 
As I looked at Mr. Pinto I do declare he looked so like the 
figure on that old piece of plate that I started and felt very 
uneasy. " Ha ! '' said he, laughing through his false teeth (I 
declare they were false — I could see utterly toothless gums 
working up and down behind the pink coral), " you see I wore 
a beard den ; I am shafed now ; perhaps you tink I am a spoon. 
Ha, ha ! " And as he laughed he gave a cough which I 
thought would have coughed his teeth out, his glass eye out, 
his wig off, his very head off ; but he stopped this convulsion 
by stumping across the room and seizing a little bottle of bright 
pink medicine, which, being opened, spread a singular acrid 
aromatic odor through the apartment ; and I thought I saw — 
but of this I cannot take an affirmation — -a light green and vio- 
let flame flickering round the neck of the phial as he opened it. 
By the way, from the peculiar stumping noise which he made in 
crossing the bare-boarded apartment, I knew at once that my 
strange entertainer had a wooden leg. Over the dust which 
lay quite thick on the boards, you could see the mark of one 
foot very neat and pretty, and then a round O, which was nat- 
urally the impression made by the wooden stump. I own I 
had a queer thrill as I saw that mark, and felt a secret comfort 
that it was not clovcji. 

■ In this desolate apartment in which Mr. Pinto had invited me 
to see him, there w^ere three chairs, one bottomless, a little 
table on which you might put a breakfast-tray, and not a single 
other article of furniture. In the next room, the door of which 
was open, I could see a magnificent gilt dressing-case, with 
some splendid diamond and ruby shirt-studs lying by it, and a 
chest of drawers, and a cupboard apparently full of clothes. 

Remembering him in Baden Baden in great magnificence, I 
wondered at his present denuded state. ** You have a house 
elsewhere, Mr. Pinto t " I said. 

" Many,'' says he. " I have apartments in many cities. I 
lock dem up, and do not carry mosh logish.'- 

I then remembered that his apartment at Baden, where I 
first met him, was bare, and had no bed in it. 

*^ There is, then, a sleeping-room beyond ? '' 

" This is the sleeping-room." (He pronounces it dis. Can 
this, by the way, give any clue to the nationality of this singular 
man ?) 

*^ If you sleep on these two old chairs you have a rickety 
couch ; if on the floor, a dusty one." 

" Suppose I sleep up dere ? " said this strange man, and he 



THE NOTCH OiV THE AXE. 183 

actually pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad, or what 
he himself called " an ombog." '* I know. You do not believe 
me ; for why should I deceive you ? I came but to propose a 
matter of business to you. I told you I could give you the 
clue to the mystery of the Two Children in Black, whom you 
met at Baden, and you came to see me. If I told you you 
would not believe me. What for try and convinz you? Ha 
hey .^ " And he shook his hand once, twice, thrice, at me, and 
glared at me out of his eye in a peculiar way. 

Of what happened now I protest I cannot give an accurate 
account. It seemed to me that there shot a flame from his 
eye into my brain, whilst behind his glass eye there was a 
green illumination as if a candle had been lit in it. It seemed 
to me that from his long fingers two quivering flames issued, 
sputtering, as it were, which penetrated me, and forced me 
back into one of the chairs — the broken one — out of which I 
had much difficulty in scrambling, when the strange glamor 
was ended. It seemed to me that, when I was so fixed, so 
transfixed in the broken chair, the man floated up to the ceil- 
ing, crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he were lying on a 
sofa, and grinned down at me. When I came to myself he was 
down from the ceiling, and, taking me out of the broken cane- 
bottomed chair, kindly enough — '* Bah," said he, ^' it is the 
smell of my medicine. It often gives the vertigo. I thought 
you would have had a little fit. Come into the open air." 
And we went down the steps, and into Shepherd's Inn, where 
the setting sun was just shining on the statue of Shepherd ; 
the laundresses were trapesing about ; the poffers were lean- 
ing against the railings ; and the clerks were playing at marbles 
to my inexpressible consolation. 

** You said you were going to dine at the * Gray's-inn Coffee- 
house,^" he said. I was. I often dined there. There is ex- 
cellent wine at the '' Gray's-inn Coffee-house ; " but I declare I 
NEVER SAID so. I was not astonished at his remark ; no more 
astonished than if I was in a dream. Perhaps I was in a 
dream. Is life a dream ? Are dreams facts ? Is sleeping 
being really awake ? I don't know. I tell you I am puzzled. 
I have read the ** Woman in White," "The Strange Story" 
— not to mention that story " Stranger than Fiction " in the 
Cornhill Magazi?ie — that story for which three credible wit- 
nesses are ready to vouch. I have had messages from the 
dead, and not only from the dead, but from people who never 
existed at ail. I own I am in a state of much bewilderment : 
but, if you please, will proceed with my simple, my artless story. 



184 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

Well, then. We passed from Shepherd's Inn into Holborn, 
and looked for a while at Woodgate's bric-a-brac shop, which 
I never could pass wdthout delaying at the windows — indeed, 
if I were going to be hung, I would beg the cart to stop, and 
let me have one look more at that delightful omnium gatherum. 
And passing Woodgate's, we come to Gale's little shop, ^* No. 
47,'' which is also a favorite haunt of mine. 

Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we exchanged 
salutations, " Mr. Pinto," I said, *^ w^ill you like to see a real 
curiosity in this curiosity-shop } Step into Mr. Gale's little 
back room." 

In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs ; there 
are old Saxe and Sevres plates; there is FUrstenberg, Carl 
Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin, and other jimcrockery. 
And in the corner what do you think there is ? There is an 
actual GUILLOTINE. If you doubt me, go and see — Gale, 
High Holborn, No. 47. It is a slim instrument, much lighter 
than those which they make now ; some nine feet high, nar- 
row, a pretty piece of upholstery enough. There is the hook 
over which the rope used to play which unloosened the dread- 
ful axe above ; and look ! dropped into the orifice w^here the 
head used to go — there is the axe itself, all rusty, with a 

GREAT NOTCH IN THE BLADE. 

As Pinto looked at it — Mr. Gale was not in the room, I 
recollect ; happening to have been just called out by a customer 
who offered him three pounds fourteen and sixpence for a blue 
Shepherd in pate tendre, — Mr. Pinto gave a little start, and 
seemed crispe for a moment. Then he looked steadily towards 
one of those great porcelain stools which you see in gardens — 
and — it seemed to me — I tell you I w^on't take my affidavit — ■ 
I may have been maddened by the six glasses I took of that 
pink elixir — I may have been sleep-walking : perhaps I am as 
I write now — -I may have been under the influence of that as- 
tounding MEDIUM into whose hands I had fallen — but I vow 
I heard Pinto say, with rather a gastly grin at "the porcelain 
stool. 



*' Nay, nefer shague your gory 
Dou canst not say I did it. 



locks at me, 



(He pronounced it, by the way, I dit il, by which I know that 
Pinto was a German.) 

I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on the 
porcelain stool I saw, dimly at first, then wdth an awful distinct- 
ness—a ghost — an eidolon — a form — a headless iman seated, 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 185 

with his head in his lap, which wore an expression of piteous 
surprise. 

At this minute Mr. Gale entered from the front shop to 
show a customer some delf plates \ and he did not see — but 
we did — the figure rise up from the porcelain stool, shake its 
head, which it held in its hand, and which kept its eyes fixed 
sadly on us, and disappeared behind the guillotine. 

" Come to the ' Gray's-inn Coffee-house,' " Pinto said, 
" and I will tell you how the notch came to the axe." And 
we walked down Holborn about thirty-seven minutes past six 
o'clock. 

If there is anything in the above statement w^hich astonishes 
the reader, I promise him that in the next chapter of this little 
sXorj he will be astonished still more. 



Part II. 

"You will excuse me," I said, to my companion, "for 
remarking, that when you addressed the individual sitting 
on the porcelain stool, with his head in his lap, your 
ordinarily benevolent features " — (this I confess was a 
bouncer, for between ourselves a more sinister and ill-looking 
rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom set eyes on) — " your ordi- 
narily handsome face wore an expression that was by no means 
pleasing. You grinned at the individual just as you did at me 

when you went up to the cei , pardon me, as I thought you 

did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers ;" and I quali-' 
fied my words in a great flutter and tremble ; I did not care 
to offend the man — I did not dare to oft'end the man. I 
thought once or twice of jumping into a cab and flying ; of 
taking refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse ; of 
speaking to a policeman, but not one would come. I w^as 
this man's slave. I followed him like his dog. I could not 
get away from him. So, you see, I went on meanly con- 
versing with him, and affecting a simpering confidence. I 
remember, when I was a little boy at school, going up fawn- 
ing and smiling in this way to some great hulking bully of 
a sixth- form boy. So I said in a word, " Your ordinarily 
handsome face wore a disagreeable expression," &c. 

" It is ordinarily very handsome," said he, with such a leer 
at a couple of passers-by, that one of them cried, " Oh, crikey, 
here's a precious guy ! " and a child, in its nurse's arms, scream- 
ed itself into convulsions. " Oh, oui^ che suis tres-choli garfon* 



lS6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

bien peau^ cerdainement,^^ continued Mr. -Pinto ; "but you were 
right. That — that person was not very well pleased when he 
saw me. There was no love lost between us, as you say ; and 
the world never knew a more w^orthless miscreant. I hate him, 
voyez-vous ? I hated him alife ; I hate him dead. I hate him 
man ; I hate him ghost : and he know it, and tremble before 
me. If I see him twenty tausend 3^ears heace — and why not 1 
— I shall hate him still. You remarked how he was dressed ? " 

" In black satin breeches and striped stockings ; a white 
pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his 
hair in powder. He must have worn a pigtail — only ■■ '' 

" Only it w^as cutoff/ Ha, ha, ha ! '^ Mr. Pinto cried, yelling 
a laugh, which I observed made the policemen stare very much. 
** Yes. It was cut off by the same blow which took off the 
scoundrel's head — ho, ho, ho ! " And he made a circle with 
his hook-nailed finger round his own yellow neck, and grinned 
with a horrible triumph. " I promise you that fellow was sur- 
prised when he found his head in the pannier. Ha ! ha ! Do 
you ever cease to hate those whom you hate ? " — fire flashed 
terrifically from his glass eye as he spoke — " or to love dose 
whom you once loved. Oh, never, never ! '' And here his 
natural eye was bedewed with tears. " But here we are at the 
* Gray's-inn Coffee-house.' James, what is the joint 1 ^^ 

That very respectful and efficient waiter brought in the bill 
of fare, and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of pork and pease- 
pudding, which my acquaintance said would do as well as 
anything else ; though I remarked he only trifled with the 
pease-pudding, and left all the pork on the plate. In fact, he 
scarcely ate anything. But he drank a prodigious quantity of 
wine ; and I must say that my friend Mr. Hart's port-wine is so 
good that I myself took— well, I should think, I took three 
glasses. Yes, three, certainly. He — I mean Mr. P.— the old 
rogue, was insatiable : for we had to call for a second bottle in 
no time. When that was gone my companion wanted another. 
A little red mounted up to his yellow cheeks as he drank the 
wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner. '' I remember,'* 
said he, musing, " when port-wine was scarcely drunk in this 
country — though the Queen liked it, and so did Harley ; but 
Bolingbroke didn't — he drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. 
Swift put water to his wine. ' Jonathan,' I once said to him 

but bah ! aiitres temps ^ mdres moeu7's. Another magnum, 

James." 

This was all very well. "My good sir," I said, "it may 
suit 7^^ to order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle ; but 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 187 

that kind of price does not suit me. I only happen to have 
thirty-four and sixpence in my pocket, of which I want a 
shilling for the waiter and eighteenpence for my cab. You rich 
foreigners and sive/Is may spend what you like " (I had him 
there : for my friend's dress was as shabby as an old-clothes- 
man's) ; **but a man with a family, Mr. What-d'you-call'im, 
cannot afford to spend seven or eight hundred a year on his 
dinner alone." 

" Bah ! " he said. " Nunkey pays for us all, as you say. I 
will what you call stant the dinner, if you are so poor /^^ and 
again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an odious 
crooked-nailed and by no means clean finger to his nose. But 
I was not so afraid of him now, for we were in a public place ; 
and the three glasses of port-v/ine had, you see, given me 
courage. 

** What a pretty snuff-box ! " he remarked, as I handed him 
mine, which I am still old-fashioned enough to carr}\ It is a 
pretty old gold box enough, but valuable to me especially as a 
relic of an old, old relative, whom I can just remember as a 
child, when she was very kind to me. " Yes ; a pretty box. I 
can remember when many ladies — most ladies, carried a box — 
nay, two boxes — tabatiere and bonbonni^re. What lady carries 
snuff-box now, hey ? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in 
an assembly were to offer you 71 prise? I can remember a lady 
with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then ; 
With, paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane, with the prettiest little 
high-heeled velvet shoes in the world ! — ah ! that was a time » 
that was a time ! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my 
mind's eye ! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk with 
thee, Eliza .? Aha, did I not love thee ? " Did I not walk with 
thee then 1 Do I not see thee still ? " 

This was passing strange. My ancestress — but there is no 
need to publish her revered name — did indeed live at Bungay 
St. Mar}^'s, where she lies buried. She used to walk with a 
tortoise-shell cane. She used to wear little black velvet shoes, 
with the prettiest high heels in the world. 

" Did you — did you — know, then, my great gr-ndm-ther ? '* 
I said. 

He pulled up his coat-sleeve — '' Is that her name 1 '' he 
said. 

*' Eliza " 

There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old crea- 
ture written in red on his arm. 

^'You knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with 



l88 OUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

his strange Knack); " /knew her young and lovely. I danced 

with her at the Bury ball. Did I not, dear, dear Miss ? " 

As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's maiden name. 

Her maiden name was Her honored married name 

was 



" She married your great gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won 
the Newmarket Plate,'' Mr. Pinto dryly remarked. 

Merciful powers ! I remember over the old shagreen knife 
and spoon-case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print 
by Stubbs of that very horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and 
his fair hair fio\ving over his shoulders, was over the mantel- 
piece, and Posiedon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783 ! 

" Yes j you are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury 
that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I quarrelled 
with your grandf , ha ! " 

As he said " Ha ! " there came three quiet little taps on the 
table — it is the middle table in the " Gray's-inn Coftee-house," 
under the bust of the late Duke of W-11-ngt-n. 

" I fired in the air," he continued ; " did I not ? " (Tap, 
tap, tap.) " Your grandfather hit me in the leg. He married 
three months afterwards.* ^ Captain Brown,' I said, * who could 
see Miss Sm-th without loving her ? ' She is there ! She is 
there 1 " (Tap, tap, tap.) " Yes, my first love " 

But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means 
'' No." 

" I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan 

features, *^ she was not my first love. In Germ in my own 

countr}' — there was a young woman " 

Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little treble 
knock ; and when the old man said, " But I loved thee better 
than all the v/orld, Eliza," the afiirmative signal was briskly re- 
peated. 

And this I declare upon my honor. There was, I have 
said, a bottle of port-wine before us — I should say a decanter. 
That decanter was lifted up, and out of it into our respective 
glasses two bumpers of wine were poured. I appeal to Mr. 
Hart, the landlord — I appeal to James, the respectful and in- 
telligent waiter, if this statement is not true ? And when we 
had finished that magnum, and Tsaid — for I did not now in 
the least doubt of her presence — '' Dear gr-nny, may VvC have 
another magnum ? " — the table distinctly rapped " No." 

" Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began to 
be affected by the wine, *^ you understand the interest I have 
taken in you. I loved Eliza " (of course I don't.mention 



THE A'OTCII OX THE AXE. 1 89 

family names). " I knew you had that box which belonged to 
her — I will give you what you like for that box. Name your 
price at once, and I pay you on the spot." 

" Why, when we came out, you said you had not sixpence 
,in your pocket.'' 

" Bah ! give you anything you like — fifty — a hundred — a 
tausend pound." 

*' Come, come," said I, "the gold of the box may be worth 
nine guineas, and thefafOfi we Vvill put at six more." 

" One tausend guineas ! " he screeched. " One tausend and 
fifty pound, dere ! " and he sank back in his chair — no, by the 
w^ay, on his bench, for he was sitting with his back to one of 
the partitions of the boxes, as I dare say James remembers. 

" Don't go on in this way," I continued, rather weakly, for 
I did not know whether I was in a dream. " If you offer me a 
thousand guineas for this box I must take it. Alusn't I, dear 
gr-nny ? " 

The table most distinctly said, " Yes ; " and putting out his 
claws to seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked nose into 
it and eagerly inhaled some of my 47 with a dash of Hardman. 

" But stay, you old harpy ! " I exclaimed, being now in a sort 
of rage, and quite familiar with him. *• Where is the money. 
WHiere is the check } " 

" James, a piece of note-paper and a receipt-stamp ! " 

" This is all mighty well, sir," I said, " but I don't know 
you ; I never saw you before. I will trouble you to hand me 
that box back again, or give me a check with some known sig- 
nature." 

"Whose? Ha, Ha, HA!" 

The room happened to be very dark. Indeed, all the wait- 
ers were gone to supper, and there were only two gentlemen 
snoring in their respective boxes. I saw a hand come quiver- 
ing down from the ceiling — a veiy pretty hand, on which was a 
ring with a coronet, with a lion rampant gules for a crest. I saw 
that hand take a dip of ink and write across the paper, Mr. 
Pinto, then, taking a gray receipt-stamp out of his blue leather 
pocket-book, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process ; 
and the hand then wrote across the receipt-stamp, went across 
the table and shook hands with Pinto, and then, as u waving 
him adieu, vanished in the direction of the ceiling. 

There was the paper before m.e, wet with ink. There was 
the pen which the hand had used. Does anybody doubt me ? 
/ have that pen noiu. A cedar-stick of a not uncommon sort, 
and holding one of Gillott's pens. It is in my inkstand now, I 



igo ROUNDABOUT PAPEPS. 

tell you. Anybody may see it. The handwriting on the check, 
for such the document was, was the writing of a female. It 
ran thus: — *' London, midnight, March 31, 1862. ' Pay the 
bearer one thousand and fifty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To 
Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London.'' 

" Noblest and best of women ! '' said Pinto, kissing the sheet 
of paper with much reverence. *^My good Mr. Roundabout, I 
suppose you do not question that signature ? '' 

Indeed, the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto & Co. is known 
to be one of the richest in Europe, and as for the Countess 
Rachel, she was known to be the chief manager of that enor- 
mously wealthy establishment. There was only one little diffi- 
culty, the Coimtess Rachel died last October. 

I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the paper 
to Pinto with a sneer. 

" Cest a hrendre on a laisser,^^ he said with some heat. " You 
literary men are all imbrudent ; but I did not tink you such a 
fool wie dis. Your box is not worth twenty pound, and I offer 
you a tausend because I know you w^ant money to pay dat 
rascal Tom's college bills." (This strange man actually knew 
that my scapegrace Tom has been a source of great expense 
and annoyance to me.) " You see money costs me nothing, 
and you refuse to take it ! Once, twice ; will you take this 
check in exchange for your trumpery snuff-box ? " 

What could I do.^ My poor granny's legacy was valuable 
and dear to me, but after all a thousand guineas are not to be 
had ever}*" day. ** Be it a bargain," said I. " Shall we have a 
glass of wine on it 1 " says Pinto ; and to this proposal I also 
unwillingly acceded, remindiiig him, by the way,- that he had 
not yet told me the story^ of the headless man. 

*' Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right just now, when she said 
she was not my first love. 'Twas one of those banale expres- 
sions " (here Mr. P. blushed once more) " which we use to 
women. We tell each she is our first passion. They reply 
with a similar illusory formula. No man is any woman's first 
love ; no woman any man's. W^e are in love in our nurse's 
arms, and women coquette with their eyes before their tongue 
can form a word. How could your lovely relative love me ? I 
was far, far too old for her. I am older than I look. I am so 
old that you would not believe my age were I to tell you. I 
have loved many and many a woman before your relative. It 
has not always been fortunate for them to love me. Ah ! So- 
phronia ! Round the dreadful circus where you fell, and whence 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 



191 



I was dragged corpse-like by the heels, there sat multitudes 
more savage than the lions which mangled your sweet form ! 
Ah, tenez ! when we marched to the terrible stake together at 
Valladolid — the Protestant and the J — But away with mem- 
ory 1 Boy ! it was happy for thy grandam that she loved me 
not. 

" During that strange period," he went on, " when the teem- 
ing Time was great with the revolution that was speedily to be 
born, I was on a mission in Paris with my excellent, my maligned 
friend, Cagliostro. Mesmer was one of our. band. I seemed 
to occupy but an obscure rank in it : though, as you know, in 
secret societies the humble man may be a chief and director — 
the ostensible leader but a puppet moved by unseen hands. 
Never mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind 
my age. It boots not to tell it : why shall I expose myself to 
your scornful incredulity — or reply to your questions in words 
that are familiar to you, but which yet you cannot understand ? 
Words are symbols of things which you know, or of things 
which you don't know. If you don't know them, to speak is 
idle." (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly thirty-eight 
minutes, about physics, metaphysics, language, the origin and 
destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and, to 
relieve my etifiui, drank a half-glass or so of wine.) "Love, 
friend, is the fountain of youth ! " It may not happen to me 
once — once in an age : but when I love, then I am young. I 
loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde, Bathilde, I loved thee — 
ah, how fondly ! Wine, I say, more wine ! Love is ever young. 
I was a boy at the little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel — the fair, 
the fond, the fickle, ah, the false ! " The strange old man's 
agony was here really terrific, and he showed himself much more 
agitated than he had been when speaking about my gr-ndm-th-r. 

"I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to her 
in the language of all countries, and tell her the lore of all 
ages. I could trace the nursery legends which she loved up to 
their Sanscrit source, and whispered to her the darkling mys- 
teries of Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her the wild chorus 
that rang in the dishevelled Eleusinian revel : I could tell her, 
and I would, the watchword never know^n but to one woman, 
the Saban Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear 
of Solomon — You don't attend. Psha ! you have drunk too 
much wine ! " Perhaps I may as well own that I was 7iot at- 
tending, for he had been carrying on for about fifty-seven 
minutes ; and I don't like a man to have ^// the talk to himself. 

** Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of 



192 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



Masonr}\ In early, early days I loved, I married a girl fair as 
Blanche, who, too, was tormented by curiosity, who, too, would 
peep into my closet — into the only secret I guarded from her. 
A dreadful fate befell poor Fatima. An accident shortened her 
life. Poor thing ! she had a foolish sister who urged her on. 
I always told her to beware of Ann. She died. They said 
her brothers killed me. A gross falsehood. Am I dead ? If 
I were, could I pledge you in this wine ? " 

" Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, ^^ was your 
name, pray, then, ever Blueb .^ " 

*' Hush ! the waiter will overhear 3^ou. Methought we 
were speaking of Blanche de Bechamel. I loved her, young 
man. My pearls, and diamonds, and treasures, my wit, my 
wisdom, my passion, I flung them all into the child's lap. I 
was a fool ! Was strong Samson not as weak as 1 1 Was 
Solomon the Wise much better when Balkis wheedled himi ? I 

said to the king But enough of that, I spake of Blanche 

de Bechamel. 

*' Curiosity w^as the poor child's foible. I could see, as I 
talked to her, that her thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, my 
friend, have been absent once or twice to-night). To know 
the secret of Masonry was the wretched child's mad desire. 
With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she strove to coax it 
from me — from me — ha ! ha ! 

" I had an apprentice — the son of a dear friend, who died 
by my side at Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose army I 
happened to be, suffered a dreadful defeat for neglecting my 
advice. The young Chevalier Goby de Mouchy was glad 
enough to serve as my clerk, and help in some chemical ex- 
periments in which I was engaged with my friend Dr. Mesmer. 
Bathilde saw this young man. Since women were, has it not 
been their business to smile and deceive, to fondle and lure ? 
Awa}^ From the very first it has been so!" And as my 
companion spoke, he looked as wdcked as the serpent that 
coiled round the tree, and hissed a poisoned counsel to the 
first woman. 

" One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche. 
She was radiant : she was wild with spirits : a saucy triumph 
blazed in her blue eyes. She talked, she rattled in her childish 
way. She uttered, in the course of her rhapsody, a hint — an 
intimation — so terrible that the truth flashed across me in a 
moment. Did I ask her ? She would lie to me. But I know 
how to make falsehood impossible. And I ordered her to go to 
sleep. '"^ 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE, 193 

At this moment the clock (after its previous convulsions) 
sounded Twelve. And as the new Editor '^ of the Cornhill 
Magazine — and he^ I promise you, won't stand any nonsense — 
will only allow seven pages, I am obliged to leave off at the 

VERY MOST INTERESTING POINT OF THE StORY. 

Part III. 

** Are you of our fraternity ? I see you are not. The secret 
which Mademoiselle de Bechamel confided to me in her mad 
triumph and wild hoyden spirits— she was but a child, poor 
thing, poor thing, scarce fifteen : — but I love them young — a 
folly not unusual with the old ! " (Here Mr. Pinto thrust his 
knuckles into his hollow eyes ; and, I am sorry to say, so little 
regardful was he of personal cleanliness, that his tears made 
streaks of white over his gnarled dark hands.) " Ah, at fifteen, 
poor child, thy fate was terrible ! Go to ! It is not good to 
love me, friend. They prosper not who do. I divine you. 
You need not say what you are thinking " 

In truth, I was thinking, if girls fall in love with this sal- 
low, hook-nosed, glass-eyed, wooden-legged, dirty, hideous old 
man, with the sham teeth, they have a queer taste. That is 
what I was thinking. 

"Jack Wilkes said the handsomest man in London had but 
half an hour's start of him. And without vanity, I am scarcely 
uglier than Jack Wilkes. We were members of the same club 
at Medenham Abbey, Jack and I, and had many a merry night 
together. Well, sir, I — Mary of Scotland knew me but as a 
little hunch-backed music-master; and yet, and yet, I think 

she was not indifferent to her David Riz and she came to 

misfortune. They all do — they all do ! " 

*' Sir, you are wandering from your point ! " I said, with 
some severity. For, really, for this old humbug to hint that he 
had been the baboon who frightened the club at Medenham, 
that he had been in the Inquisition at Yalladolid — that under 
the name of D. Riz, as he called it, he had known the lovely 
Queen of Scots — was a little too much. " Sir," then I said, 
" you were speaking about a Miss de Bechamel. I really have 
not time to hear all your biography." 

" Faith, the good wine gets into my head." (I should think 
so, the old toper ! Four bottles all but two glasses.) **To 
return to poor Blanche. As I sat laughing, joking with her, 
she let slip a word, a little word, which filled me with dismay. 

• Mr. Thackeray retired from the Editorship of the Corfihill Magazine in March 1862. 

13 



194 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

Some one had told her a part of the Secret — the secret which 
has been divulged scarce thrice in three thousand years — the 
Secret of the Freemasons. Do you know what happens to 
those uninitiate who learn that secret ? to those wretched men, 
the initiate who reveal it ? " 

As Pinto spoke to me, he looked through and through me 
with his horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite uneasily on 
my bench. He continued : ** Did I question her awake ? I 
knew she would lie to me. Poor child ! I loved her no less 
because I did not believe a word she said. I loved her blue 
eye, her golden hair, her delicious voice, that was true in song, 
though when she spoke, false as Eblis ! You are aware that I 
possess in rather a remarkable degree what we have agreed to 
call the mesmeric power. I set the unhappy girl to sleep. 
Then she was obliged to tell me all. It was as I had surmised. 
Goby de Mouchy, my wretched, besotted, miserable secretary, 
in his visits to the chateau of the old Marquis de Bechamel, 
who was one of our society, had seen Blanche. I suppose it 
was because she had been warned that he was worthless, and 
poor, artful, and a coward, she loved him. She wormed out of 
the besotted wretch the secrets of our Order. * Did he tell you 
the NUMBER ONE ? ' I askcd. 

" She said, ' Yes.^ 

*^ * Did he,' I further inquired, * tell you the - 

" * Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me ! ' she said, writhing on 
the sofa, where she lay in the presence of the Marquis de 
Bechamel, her most unhappy father. Poor Bechamel, poor 
Bechamel ! How pale he looked as I spoke ! ' Did he tell 
you,' I repeated with a dreadful calm, * the number two ? ' 
She said, ' Yes.' 

*' The poor old Marquis rose up, and clasping his hands, 

fell on his knees before Count Cagl Bah ! I went by a 

different name then. Vat's in a name. Dat vich ve call a 
Rosicrucian by any other name vil smell as sveet. * Monsieur,' 
he said, ' I am old — I am rich. I have five hundred thousand 
livres of rentes in Picardy. I have half as much in Artois. I 
have two hundred and eighty thousand on the Grand Livre. I 
am promised by my Sovereign a dukedom and his orders with 
a reversion to my heir. I am a Grandee of Spain of the First 
Class, and Duke of Volovento. Take my titles, my ready 
money, my life, my honor, everything I have in the world, but 
don't ask the third question.' 

" ^ Godefroid de Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee of 
Spain and Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly what was the 



THE NOTCH O.V THE AXE. 



19s 



oath you swore ? ' *' The old man writhed as he remembered 
its terrific purport. 

*' Though my heart was racked with agony, and I would 
have died, ay, cheerfully " (died, indeed, as if that were a pen- 
alty!) '* to spare yonder lovely child a pang, I said to her 
calmly, * Blanche de Bechamel, did Goby de Mouchy tell you 
secret number three ? ' 

*• She whispered a oiii that was quite faint, faint and small. 
But her poor father fell in convulsions at her feet. 

" She died suddenly that night. Did I not tell you those I 
love come to no good. When General Bonaparte crossed the 
Saint Bernard, he saw in the convent an old monk with a white 
beard, wandering about the corridors, cheerful and rather stout, 
but mad — mad as a March hare. ^ General,' I said to him, 
* did you ever see that face before ? ' He had not. He had 
not mingled much with the higher class of our society before 
the Revolution. / knew the poor old man well enough ; he 
was the last of a noble race, and I loved his child." 

'' And did she die by 1 " 

" Man ! did I say so ? Do I whisper the secrets of the 
Vehmgericht ? I say she died that night : and he — he, the 
heartless, the villain, the betrayer, — you saw him seated in yon- 
der curiosity-shop, by yonder guillotine, with his scoundrelly 
head in his lap. 

" You saw how slight that instrument was ? It was one of 
the first which Guillotin made, and which he showed to private 
friends in a hangar in the Rue Picpus, where he lived. The 
invention created some little conversation amongst scientific 
men at the time, though I remember a machine in Edinburgh 
of a very similar construction, two hundred — well, many, many 
years ago — and at a breakfast \vhich Guillotin gave he showed 
us the instrument, and much talk arose amongst us as to 
whether people suffered under it. 

" And now I must tell you what befell the traitor who had 
caused all this suft^ering. Did he know that the poor child's 
death was a sentence ? He felt a cowardly satisfaction that 
with her was gone the secret of his treason. Then he began 
to doubt. I had means to penetrate all his thoughts, as well 
as to know his acts. Then he became a slave to a horrible 
fear. He fled in abject terror to a convent. They still ex- 
isted in Paris; and behind the walls of Jacobins the wretch 
thought himself secure. Poor fool ! I had but to set one of 
my somnambulists to sleep. Her spirit went forth and spied 
the shuddering wretch in his cell. She described the street. 



196 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

the gate, til^ convent, the \^ry dress which he wore, and which 
you saw to-day. 

"• And now this is what happened. In his chamber in the 
Rue St. Hon ore, at Paris, sat a man alone — a man who has 
been mahgned, a man who has been called a knave and char- 
latan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is 
said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! 
ha ! A man who has a mighty will. 

*^ And looking towards the Jacobins Convent (of which, 
from his chamber, he could see the spires and trees), this man 
WILLED. And it was not yet dawn. And he willed ; and one 
who was lying in his cell in the convent of Jacobins, awake 
and shuddering with terror for a crime which he had com- 
mitted, fell asleep. 

" But though he was asleep his eyes were open. 

" And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the pallet, 
and saying, VNo, I will not go,' he rose up and donned his 
clothes — a gray coat, a vest of white pique, black satin small- 
clothes, ribbed silk stockings, and a white stock with a steel 
buckle ; and he arranged his hair, and he tied his queue, all the 
while being in that strange somnolence which walks, which 
moves, which flies sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent 
to pain, which obeys. And he put on his hat, and* he went 
forth from his cell ; and though the dawn was not yet, he trod 
the corridors as seeing them. And he passed into the cloister, 
and then into the garden where lie the ancient dead. And he 
came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome was opening just at 
the dawning. And the crowd was already waiting with their 
cans and bowls to receive the alms of the good brethren. 

" And he passed through the crowd and went on his way, 
and the few people then abroad who marked him, said, ^ Tiens ! 
How very odd he looks ! He looks like a man walking in his 
sleep ! ' This was said by various persons : — 

^* By milk-women, with their cans and carts, coming into the 
town. 

" By roysterers who had been drinking at the taverns of the 
Barrier, for it was Mid-Lent. 

" By the sergeant of the watch, who eyed him sternly as he 
passed near their halberds. 

" But he passed on unmoved by the halberds, 

*' Unmoved by the cries of the roysterers, 

" By the market-women coming with their milk and eggs, 

" He walked through the Rue St. Honore, I say : — 

" By the Rue Rambuteau, 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE. 



197 



" By the Rue St. Antoine, 

" By the King's Chateau of the Bastile, 

" By the Faubourg St. Antoine. 

" And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpus — a house whicb 
then stood between a court and garden — 

'^ That is, there was a building of one story, with a great 
coach door. 

'' Then there was a court, around which were stables, coach- 
houses, offices. 

^' Then there was a house — a tw^o-storied house, with a 
perron in front. 

'' Behind the house was a garden — a garden of two hundred 
and fifty French feet in length. 

" And as one hundred feet of France equal one hundred 
and six feet of England, this garden, my friends, equalled ex- 
actly two hundred and sixty-five feet of British measure. 

'' In the centre of the garden was a fountain and a statue — 
or, to speak more correctly, tw'o statues. One was recumbent, 
— a man. Over him, sabre in hand, stood a woman. 

" The man was Olofernes. The woman was Judith. From 
the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It was the taste 
of the doctor ; — was it not a droll of taste ? 

'' At the end of the garden was the doctors cabinet of study. 
My faith, a singular cabinet, and singular pictures ! — 

" Decapitation of Charles Premier at Vitehall. 

" Decapitation of Montrose at Edimbourg. 

" Decapitation of Cinq Mars. When I tell you that he was 
a man of a taste, charming ! 

" Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, 
went the pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew the way 
of the house. He did. Turning neither right nor left, he 
seemed to walk through the statues, the obstacles, the flower- 
beds, the stairs, the door, the tables, the chairs. 

" In the corner of the room was that instrument which 
Guillotin had just invented and perfected. One day he was to 
lay his own head under his owm axe. Peace be to his name ! 
With him I deal not ! 

" In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board with a 
half-circle in it, over which another board fitted. Above was a 
heavy axe, which fell — you know^ how. It was held up by a 
rope, and when this rope was untied, or cut, the steel fell. 

" To the story which I now^ have to relate you may give 
credence, or not, as you wdll. The sleeping man went up to 
that instrument. 



198 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



" He laid his head in it, asleep/' 

^^ Asleep I '' 

" He therx took a little penknife out of the pocket of hig 
white dimity waistcoat. 

" He cut the rope asleep. 

" The axe descended on the head of the traitor and villain. 
The notch in it was made by the steel buckle of his stock, 
which was cut through. 

"A strange legend has got abroad that after the deed was 
done, the figure rose, took the head from the basket, walked 
forth through the garden, and by the screaming porters at the 
gate, and went and laid itself down at the Morgue. But for 
this I will not vouch. Only of this be sure. ' There are more 
things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in 
your philosophy.' More and more the light peeps through the 
chinlcl. Soon, amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, 
and the glorious scene be displayed. Adieu ! Remember me. 
Ha V tis dawn,'' Pinto said. And he was gone. 

I am ashamed to say that my first movement was to clutch 
the check w^hich he had left with me, and which I was deter- 
mined to present the very moment the bank opened. I know 
the importance of these things, and that men cha?ige their mhid 
sometimes. I sprang through the streets to the great banking 
house of Manasseh in Duke Street. It seemed to me as if I 
actually flew as I walked. As the clock struck ten I was at 
the counter and laid down my check. 

The gentleman who received it, who was one of the Hebrew 
persuasion, as were the other two hundred clerks of the establish- 
ment, having looked at the draft with terror in his countenance, 
then looked at me, then called to himself two of his fellow- 
clerks, and queer it was to see all their aquiline beaks over the 
paper. 

'• Come, come ! " said I, " don't keep me here all day. 
Hand me over the money, short, if you please ! " for I was, you 
see, a little alarmed, and so determined to assume some extra 
bluster, 

"Will you have the kindness to step into the parlor to the 
partners ? " the clerk said, and I followed him. 

"What, again V shrieked a bald-headed, red-whiskered 
gentleman, whom I knew to be Mr. Manasseh. " Mr. Salathiel, 
this is too bad ! Leave me with this gentleman, S." And the 
clerk disappeared. 

" Sir," he said, " I know how you came by this ; the Count 
de Pinto gave it you. It is too bad 1 I honor my parents ; I 



THE NOTCH ON THE AXE, 1 9^ 

honor their parents ; I honor their bills ! But this one of 
grandma's is too bad — it is, upon my word, now ! She've been 
dead these five-and-thirty years. And this last four months 
she has left her burial-place and took to drawing on our 'ouse ! 
It's too bad, grandma ; it is too bad ! " and he appealed to me, 
and tears actually trickled down his nose. 

" Is it the Countess Sidonia's check or not ? " I asked, 
haughtily. 

" But, I tell you she's dead ! It's a shame ! — it's a shame ! — 
it is, grandmamma ! " and he cried, and wiped his great nose in 
his yellow pocket-handkerchief. '^ Look year — will you take 
pounds instead of guineas ? She's dead, I tell you ! It's no 
go ! Take the pounds — one tausend pound ! — ten nice, neat, 
crisp hundred-pound notes, and go away vid you, do ! " 

" I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said ; and I put 
on an attitude of resolution which I confess surprised even 
myself. 

"" Wery veil," he shrieked, wdth many oaths, " then you shall 
have noting — ha, ha, ha ! — noting but a policeman ! Mr. 
Abednego, call a policeman ! Take that, you humbug and 
impostor ! " and here, with an abundance of frightful language 
which I dare not repeat, the wealthy banker abused and defied 
me. 

Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not 
choose to honor a check drawn by his dead grandmother ? I 
began to wish I had my snuff-box back. I began to think I 
was a fool for changing that little old-fashioned gold for this 
slip of strange paper. 

Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a 
paroxysm of despair. He seemed to be addressing some per- 
son invisible, but in the room : " LodTc here, ma'am, you've 
really been coming it too strong. A hundred thousand in six 
months, and now a thousand more ! The 'ouse can't stand it ; 
it won't stand it, I say ! What ? Oh ! mercy, mercy ! " 

As he uttered these words, A HAND fluttered over the 
table in the air ! It was a female hand : that which I had seen 
the night before. That female hand took a pen from the green 
baize table, dipped it in a silver inkstand, and wrote on a quarter 
of a sheet of foolscap on the blotting-book, " How about the 
diamond robbery .> If you do not pay, I will tell him where 
they are." 

What diamonds ? what robbery } what was this mystery } 
That will never be ascertained, for the wretched man's de^ 
meanor instantly changed. '' Certainly, sir ; — oh, certainly," 



200 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

he said, forcing a grin. " How will you have the mone)^, sir? 
All right, Mr. Abednego. This way out." 

" I hope I shall often see you again,'' I said ; on which I 
own poor Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot back into 
his parlor. 

I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred 
pounds, and the dear little fifty which made up the account. I 
flew through the streets again. I got to my chambers. 'I 
bolted the outer doors. I sank back in my great chair, and 
slept. -^ -^ ^. ^ 

My first thing on waking was to feel for my money. Per- 
dition ! Where was I .'^ Ha ! — on the table before me was my 
grandmother's snuff-box, and by its side one of those awful — 
those admirable — sensation novels, which I had been reading, 
and which are full of delicious wonder. 

But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, No. 
47 High Holborn, I give you M7 honor. I suppose I was 
dreaming about it. I don't know. What, is dreaming 1 What 
is life t Why shouldn't I sleep on the ceiling .^ — and am I sit- 
ting on it now, or on the floor ? I am puzzled. But enough. 
If the fashion for sensation novels goes on, I tell you I will 
write one in fifty volumes. For the present, DIXI. But be- 
tween ourselves, this Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who 
was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition, and sang duets at 
Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after three little bits of 
Roundabout Papers. Et vous ? 



DE FINIBUS, 

When Swift was in love with Stella, and despatching her a 
letter from London thrice a month by the Irish packet, you may 
remember how he would begin letter No. xxiii., we will say, on 
the very day when xxii. had been sent away, stealing out of the 
coffee-house or the assembly so as to be able to prattle with his 
dear ; ^^ never letting go her kind hand, as it were," as some 
commentator or other has said in speaking of the Dean and his 
amour. When Mr. Johnson, walking to Dodsley's, and touch- 
ing the posts in Pall Mall as he walked, forgot to pat the head 
of one of them, he went back and imposed his hands on it, — • 
impelled I know not by what superstition. I have this I hope 



DE FIiVIBUS. 2 or 

not dangerous mania too. As soon as apiece of work is out of 
hand, and before going to sleep, I like to begin another ; it may 
be to write only half a dozen lines : but that is something 
towards Number the Next. The printers boy has not yet 
reached Green Arbor Court with the copy. Those people who 
were alive half an hour since, Pendennis, Clive Newcome, and 
(what do you call him ? what was the name of the last hero? I 
remember now !) Philip Firmin, have hardly drunk their glass 
of wine, and the mammas have only this minute got the chil- 
dren's cloaks on, and have been bowed out of my premises — and 
here I come back to the study again : tamen usque 7'ecurro, 
How lonely it looks now all these people are gone ! My dear 
good friends, some folks are utterly tired of you, and say, 
^' What a poverty of friends the man has ! He is always ask- 
ing us to meet those Pendennises, Newcomes, and so forth. 
Why does he not introduce us to some new^ characters 1 Wliy 
is he not thrilling like Twostars, learned and profound like 
Threestars, exquisitely humorous and human like Fourstars ? 
Why, finally, is he not somebody else } '' My good people, it 
is not only impossible to please you all, but it is absurd to try. 
The dish which one marr devours, another disli^ces. Is the 
dinner of to-day not to your taste ? Let us hope to-morrow's 
entertainment will be more agreeable. * =^ I resume my 
original subject, W^hat an odd, pleasant, humorous, melancholy 
feeling it is to sit in the study, alone and quiet, now all these 
people are gone who have been boarding and lodging with- me 
for twenty months ! They have interrupted my rest : they have 
plagued me at all sorts of minutes : they have thrust themselves 
upon me when I was ill, or wished to be idle, and I have growled 
out a *^ Be hanged to you, can't you leave me alone now.^" 
Once or twice they have prevented my going out to dinner. 
Many and many a time they have prevented my coming home, 
because I knew they were there waiting in the study, and a 
plague take them ! and I have left home and family, and gone 
to dine at the Club, and told nobody where I went. They have 
bored me, those people. They have plagued me at all sorts of 
uncomfortable hours. They have made such a disturbance in 
my mind and house, that sometimes I have hardly known what 
was going on in my family, and scarcely have heard what my 
neighbor said to me. They are gone at last ; and you would 
expect me to be at ease ? Far from it. I should almost be 
glad if Woolcomb would walk in and talk to me ; or Twysden 
reappear, take his place in that chair opposite me, and begin 
one of his tremendous stories. 



202 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

Madmen, you know, see visions, hold conversations with, 
even draw the likeness of, people invisible to you and me. Is 
this making of people out of fancy madness ? and are no\^el- 
writers at all entitled to strait-waistcoats ? I often forget 
people's names in life ; and in my own stories contritely own 
that I make dreadful blunders regarding them ; but I declare, 
my dear sir, with respect to the personages introduced into your ■ 
humble servant's fables, I know the people utterly — I know the 
sound of their voices. A gentleman came in to see me the 
other day, who was so like the picture of Philip Firmin in Mr. 
Walker's charming drawings in the Cornhill Magazine, that he 
was quite a curiosity to me. The same eyes, beard, shoulders, 
just as you have seen them from month to month. Well, he is 
not like the Philip Firmin in my mind. Asleep, asleep in the 
grave, lies the bold, the generous, the reckless, the tender- 
hearted creature whom I have made to pass through those 
adventures which have just been brought to an end. It is years 
since I heard the laughter ringing, or saw the bright blue eyes. 
When I knew him both were young. I become young as I 
think of him. And this morning he was alive again in this 
room, read3^to laugh, to fight, or to weep. As I write, do you 
know, it is the gray of the evening^ ; the house is quiet ; every- 
body is out ; the room is getting a little dark, and I look rather 
wistfully up from the paper with perhaps ever so little fancy 

that HE MAY COME IN. No ? No movement. No 

gray shade, growing more palpable, out of which at last look 
the well-known eyes. No, the printer came and took him away 
with the last page of the proofs. And with the printer's boy 
did the whole cortege of ghosts flit away, invisible ? Ha ! stay ! 
what is this ? Angels and ministers of -grace ! The door opens, 
and a dark form enters, bearing a black — a black suit of 

clothes. It is John. He says it is time to dress for dinner. 

. * # '' * * * 

Every man who has had his German tutor, and has been 
coached through the famous " Faust " of Goethe (thou wert my 
instructor, good old W^eissenborn, and these eyes beheld the 
great master himself in dear little Weimar town !) has read 
those charming verses which are prefixed to the drama, in which 
the poet reverts to the time when his work was first composed, 
and recalls the friends now departed, who once listened to his 
song. The dear shadows rise up around him, he says ; he lives 
in the past again. It is to-day which appears vague and vision- 
ary. We humbler writers cannot create Fausts, or raise up 
monumental works that shall endure for all ages ; but our books, 



DE FT NIB US. 203 

are diaries, in which our own feelings must of necessity be set 
down. As we look to the page written last month, or ten years 
ago, we remember the day and its events ; the child ill, mayhap^ 
in the adjoining room, and the doubts and fears which racked 
the brain as it still pursued its work ; the dear old friend who 
read the commencement of the tale, and whose gentle hand 
shall be laid in ours no more, I own for my part that, in read- 
ing pages which this hand penned formerly, I often lose sight 
of the text under my eyes. It is not the words I see ; but that 
past day ; that by-gone page of life's history ; that tragedy, 
comedy it may be, which our little home company was enacting ; 
that merry-making which we shared ; that funeral which we 
followed ; that bitter, bitter grief which we buried. 

And, such being the state of my mind, I pray gentle read- 
ers to deal kindly with their humble servant's manifold short- 
comings, blunders, and slips of memory. As sure as I read a 
page of my own composition, I find a fault or two, half a dozen. 
Jones is called Brown, Brown, who is dead, is brought to life. 
Aghast, and months after the number was printed, I saw that I 
had called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive New- 
come is the hero of another story by the reader's most obedient 
wTiter. The two men are as different, in my mind's eye, as — • 
as Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disra^i let us say. But there is 
that blunder at page 990, line 76, volume 84, of the CornhM 
Magazine, and it is past mending ; and I wish in my life I had 
made no worse blunders or errors than that which is hereby 
acknowledged. 

Another Finis written. Another mile-stone passed on this 
journey from birth to the next world ! Sure *it is a subject for 
solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this stor)'-telling busi- 
ness and be voluble to the end of our age .^ Will it not be 
presently time, O prattler, to hold your tongue, and let younger 
people speak 1 I have a friend, a painter, who, like other per- 
sons who shall be nameless, is growing old. He has never 
painted with such laborious finish as his works now show. 
This master is still the most humble and diligent of scholars. 
Of Art, his mistress, he is always an eager, reverent pupil. In 
his calling, in yours, in mine, industry and humility will help 
and comfort us. A word with you. In a pretty large experi- 
ence I have not found the men who write books superior in wit 
or learning to those who don't write at all. In regard of mere 
information, non-writers must often be superior to writers. You 
don't expect a lawyer in full practice to be conversant with all 
kinds of literature; he is too busy with his law; and so ^ 



204 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

writer is commonly too busy with his own books to be able to 
bestow attention on the works of other people. After a day's 
work (in which I have been depicting, let us say, the agonies of 
Louisa on parting with the Captain, or the atrocious behavior 
of the wicked Marquis to Lady Emily) I march to the Club, 
proposing to improve my mind and keep myself "posted up," 
as the Arnericans phrase it, with the literature of the day. And 
what happens ? Given, a walk after luncheon, a pleasing book, 
and a most comfortable arm-chair by the fire, and you know 
the rest. A doze ensues. Pleasing book drops suddenly, is 
picked up once with an air of some confusion, is laid presently 
softly* in )ap : head falls on comfortable arm-chair cushion: 
eyes close : soft nasal- music is heard. Am I telling Club 
secrets ? Of afternoons, after lunch, I say, scores of sensible 
fogies have a doze. Perhaps I have fallen asleep over that 
very book to which " Finis '' has just been written. " And if 
the writer sleeps, what happens to the readers ? " says Jones, 
coming down upon nie with his lightning wit. What t You did 
sleep over it ? And a very good thing too. These eyes have 
more than once seen a friend dozing over pages which this hand 
has written. There is a vignette somewhere in one of my 
books of a friend so caught napping with " Pendennis," or the 
" Nevvcomes," in his lap ; and if a writer can give you a sweet- 
soothing, harmless sleep, has he not done you a kindness ? So 
is the author who excites and interests you worthy of your 
thanks and benedictions. I am troubled with fever and ague, 
that seizes me at odd intervals and prostrates me for a day. 
There is cold fit, for which, I am thankful to say, hot brandy-and- 
water is prescribed, and this induces hot fit, and so on. In one or 
two o^ these fits I have read novels with the most fearful content- 
ment of mind. Once on the Mississippi, it was my dearly 
belov^^d "Jacob Faithful -. " once at Frankfort O. M., the de- 
lightful " Vingt Ans Apres " of Monsieur Dumas : once at Tun- 
bridgo Wells, the thrilling " Woman in White : " and these books 
gave rne amusement from morning till sunset. I remember those 
ague fits with a great deal of pleasure and gratitude. Think of a 
wbok day in bed, and a good novel for a companion. No cares : 
no remorse about idleness; no visitors: and the Woman in 
White or the Chevalier d'Artagnan to tell me stories from dawn 
to night ! " Please, ma'am, my master's compliments, and can 
he have the third volume ? " (This message was sent to an 
astonished friend and neighbor who lent me, volume by volume, 
the W. ill JV.) How do you like your novels? I like mine 
strong, " hot with," and no mistake : no love-making : no obser- 



DE FINIBUS. - 205 

vations about society : little dialogue, except where the charac- 
ters are bullying each other : plenty of fighting : and a villain 
in the cupboard, who is to suffer tortures just before Finis. I 
don't like your melancholy Finis. I never read the history of a 
consumptive heroine twice. If I might give a short hint to an 
impartial writer (as the Examiner used to say in old days), it 
would be to act, fiot a la mode le pays de Pole (I think that 
was the phraseology), but always to give quarter. In the story 
of Philip, just come to an end, I have the permission of the 
author to state that he was going to drown the two villains of 
the piece — a certain Doctor F and a certain Mr. T. H- 



on board the *' President," or some other tragic ship — but you 
see I relented. I pictured to myself Firmin's ghastly face 
amid the crowd of shuddering people on that reeling deck in 
the lonely ocean, and thought, "' Thou ghastly lying wretch, 
thou shalt not be drowned ; thou shalt have a fever only ; 
a knowledge of thy danger ; and a chance — ever so small a 
chance — of repentance." I wonder whether he did repent 
when he found himself in the yellow-fever, in Virginia ? The 
probability is, he fancied that his son had injured him very 
much, and forgave him on his death-bed. Do you imagine 
there's a great deal of genuine right-down remorse in the 
world ? Don't people rather find excuses which make their 
minds easy ; endeavor to prove to themselves that they have 
been lamentably belied and misunderstood ; and try and 
forgive the persecutors who will present that bill when it is 
due ; and not bear malice against the cruel ruffian who takes 
them to the police-office for stealing the spoons ? Years ago I 
had a quarrel with a certain well-known person (I believed a 
statement regarding him which his friends imparted to me, and 
which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his dying day that 
quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his brother, "Why 
is your brother's soul still dark against me } It is I who ought 
to be angry and unforgiving : for I was in the wrong." In the 
region which they now inhabit (for Finis has been set to the 
volumes of the lives of both here below), if they take any cog- 
nizance of our squabbles, and tittle-tattles, and gossips on earth 
here, I hope they admit that my little error was not of a nature 
unpardonable. If you have never committed a worse, my good 
sir, surely the score against you will not be heavy. Ha, diledis- 
simi fratres ! It is in regard of sins not found out that we may 
say or^sing (in an under-tone, in a most penitent and lugubrious 
minor key), Miserere 7iobis miseris peccatoribus, 

Amon;2f the sins of commission which novel-writers not 



2o6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

seldom perpetrate, is the sin of grandiloquence, or tall-talking, 
against which, for my part, I will offer up a special libera me. 
This is the sin of schoolmasters, governesses, critics, sermoners, 
and instructors of young or old people. Nay (for I am making 
a clean breast, and liberating my soul), perhaps of all the 
novel-spinners now extant, the present speaker is the most ad- 
dicted to preaching. Does he not stop perpetually in his story 
and begin to preach to you ? When he ought to be engaged 
with business, is he not forever taking the Muse by the sleeve, 
and plaguing her with some of his cynical sermons ? I cry 
peccavi loudly and heartily. I tell you I would like to be able 
to write a story which should show no egotism whatever — in 
which there should be no reflections, no cynicism, no vulgarity 
(and so forth), but an incident in every other page, a villain, a 
battle, a mysterj^ in every chapter. I should like to be able to 
feed a reader so spicily as to leave him hungering and thirsting 
for more at the end of ever}' monthly meal. 

Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventing the 
plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two whole days 
on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port. At the end 
of the two days he arose and called for dinner. In those two 
days he had built his plot. He had moulded a mighty clay, to 
be cast presently in perennial brass. The chapters, the char- 
acters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the 
artist's brain ere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won't fly, 
so as to let me survey the field below me. He has no wings, 
he is blind of one eye certainly, he is restive, stubborn, slow ; 
crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, or gallops when 
he ought to be quiet. He never will show off when I want him. 
Sometimes he goes at a pace which surprises me. Some- 
times, when I most wish him to make the running, the brute 
turns restive, and I am obliged to let him take his own time. 
I w^onder do other novel-writers experience this fatalism t They 
must go a certain way, in spite of themselves. I have been 
surprised at the observations made by some of my characters. 
It seems as if an occult Power was moving the pen. The per- 
sonage does or says something, and I ask, how the dickens did 
he come to think of that ? Every man has remarked in dreams^ 
the vast dramatic power which is sometimes evinced ; I won't 
say the surprising power, for nothing does surprise you in 
dreams. But those strange characters you meet make instant 
observations of which you never can have thought prev^ousl3^ 
In like manner, the imagination foretells things. We spake 
anon of the inflated style of some writers. What also if there 



DE FINIBUS. 207 

is an afflafed style, — when a writer is like a Pythoness on her 
oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which he cannot help, 
come blowing, and bellowing, and whistling, and moaning 
through the speaking pipes of his bodily organ ? I have told 
you it was a very queer shock to me the other day when, with 
a letter of introduction in his hand, the artist's (not my) Philip 
Firmin walked into this room, and sat down in the chair oppo- 
site. In the novel of *^ Pendennis," written ten years ago, 
there is an account of a certain Costigan, whom I had invent- 
ed (as I suppose authors invent their personages out of scraps, 
heel-taps, odds and ends of characters). I was smoking in a 
tavern parlor one night — and this Costigan came into the room 
alive — the very man :— -the most remarkable resemblance of the 
printed sketches of the man, of the rude drawings in which I 
had depicted him. He had the same little coat, the same 
battered hat, cocked on one eye, the same twinkle in that eye. 
** Sir," said I, knowing him to be an old friend whom I had 
met in unknown regions, *' sir," I said, *' may I offer you a glass 
of brandy-and-water ? " '' Bedad, ye may^'' says he, '^ and Fll 
sing ye a song tu^' Of course he spoke with an Irish brogue. 
Of course he had been in the army. In ten minutes he pulled 
out an Army Agent's account, whereon his name was written. 
A few months after we read of him in a police court. How 
had I come to know him, to divine him ? Nothing shall con- 
vince me that I have not seen that man in the world of spirits. 
In the world of spirits-and-water I know I did : but that is a 
mere quibble of words. I was not surprised when he spoke in 
an Irish brogue. I had had cognizance of him before some- 
how. Who has not felt that little shock which arises when a 
person, a place, some words in a book (there is always a collo- 
cation) present themselves to you, and you know that you have 
before met the same person, words, scene, and so forth t 

They used to call the good Sir Walter ^the ''Wizard of the 
North." What if some writer should appear who can write so 
encha7itmgly that he shall be able to call into actual life the 
people w4iom he invents ? What if Mignon, and Margaret, and 
Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now (though I don't say they 
are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe were to step in 
at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose 
Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide silent 
in ? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter with a 
noiseless swagger, curling their mustaches? And dearest 
Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm ; and Tittlebat Titmouse, 
vvith his hair dyed green ; and all the Crummies company of 



2o8 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

comedians, with the Gil Bias troop ; and Sir Roger de Coverley ; 
and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La 
Mancha, with his blessed squire ? I say to you, I look rather 
wistfully towards the window, musing upon these people. Were 
any of them to enter, I think I should not be very much 
frightened. Dear old friends, what pleasant hours I have had 
with them ! We do not see each other very often, but when we 
do, we are ever happy to meet. I had a capital half-hour with 
Jacob Faithful last night ; v/hen the last sheet was corrected, 
when " Finis ^' had been written, and the printer's boy, with the 
copy, was safe in Green Arbor Court. 

So you are gone, little printer's boy, with the last scratches 
and corrections on the proof, and a fine flourish by way of Finis 
at the story's end. The last corrections ? I say those last cor- 
rections seem never to be finished. A plague upon the weeds ! 
Every day, when I walk in my own little literary garden-plot, I 
spy some, and should like to have a s|nid, and root them out. 
Those idle w^ords, neighbor, are past remedy. That turning 
back to the old pages produces^anything but elation of mind. 
Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel some of 
them? Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages! Oh, the 
cares, the ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conver- 
sations over and over again ! But now and again a kind thought 
is recalled, and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few 
chapters more, and then the last : after which, behold Finis 
itself come to an end, and the Infinite begun. 



ON A PEAL OF BELLS, 



As some bells in a church hard by are making a great holi- 
day clanging in the summer afternoon, I am reminded some- 
how of a July day, a garden, and a great clanging of bells years 
and years ago, on the very day when George IV. was crowned. 
I remember a Uttle boy lying in that garden reading his first 
novel. It was called the " Scottish Chiefs." The little boy 
(who is now ancient and not little) read this book in the summer- 
house of his great-grandmamma. She was eighty years of age 
then. A most lovely and picturesque old lady, with a long tor- 
toise-shell cane, with a little puff, or tour^ of snow-white (or was 
it powdered T) hair under her cap, with the prettiest little black 



ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 



209 



velvet slippers and high heels you ever saw. She had a grand- 
son, a lieutenant in the navy ; son of her son, a captain in the 
navy ; grandson of her husband, a captain in the navy. She 
lived for scores and scores of years in a dear little old Hamp- 
shire town inhabited by the wives, widows, daughters of navy 
captains, admirals, lieutenants. Dear me !' Don't I remember 
Mrs. Duval, widow of Admiral Duval ; and the Miss Dennets, 
at the Great House at the other end of the town, Admiral 
Dennet's daughters ; and the Miss Barrys, the late Captain 
Barry's daughters ; and the good old Miss Maskews, Admiral 
Masicews' daughter; and that dear little Miss Xor\-al, and the 
kind Miss Bookers, one of whom married Captain, now Ad- 
miral, Sir Henr\' Excellent, K. C. B. ? Far, far away into the 
past I look and see the little town with its friendly glimmer. 
That town was so like a novel of Miss Austen's that I wonder 
v/as she born and bred there t No, we should have known, and 
the good old ladies would have pronounced her to be a little 
idle thing, occupied with her silly books and neglecting her 
housekeeping. There were other towns in England, no doubt, 
where dv.elt the widows and wives of other navy captains ; 
where they tattled, loved each other, and quarrelled ; talked 
about Betty the maid, and her fine ribbons indeed 1 took their 
dish of tea at six, played at quadrille ever}^ night till ten, when 
there was a little bit of suppef, after w4iich Betty came with the 
lanthorn ; and next day came, and next, and next, and so forth, 
until a day arrived when the lanthorn was out, when Betty came 
no more : all that little company sank to rest under the daisies, 
whither some folks will presently follov/ them. How did they 
live to be so old, those good people ? Afoi qui vous park, I 
perfectly recollect old Mr. Gilbert who had been to sea with 
Captain Cook; and Captain Cook, as you justly obserA-e, dear 
Miss, quoting out of your '^ Mangnall's Questions," was mur- 
dered by the natives of Owhyhee, anno 1779. Ah I don't you 
remember his picture, standing on the sea-shore, in tights and 
gaiters, with a musket in his hand, pointing to his people not to 
fire from the boats, whilst a great tattooed savage is going to 
stab him in the back ? Don't you remember those houris dan- 
cing before him and the other officers at the great Otaheite ball ? 
Don't you know that Cook was at the siege of Quebec, with the 
glorious Wolfe, who fought under the Duke of Cumberland, 
whose royal father was a distinguished officer at Ramiiiies, 
before he commanded in chief at Dettingen ? Huzza ! Give it 
them, my lads I My horse is down ? Then I know I shall not 
run away. Do the French run ? then I die content. Stop, 

14 



2IO ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

Wo ! Quo vie rapis ? My Pegasus is galloping off, goodness 
knows \vhere, like his majesty's charger at Dettingen. 

How do these rich historical and personal reminiscences 
come out of the subject at present in hand ? What is that sub- 
ject, by the way ? My dear friend, if you look at the last essay- 
kin (though you may leave it alone, and I shall not be in the 
least surprised or offended), if you look at the last paper, w^here 
the writer imagines Athos and Porthos, Dalgetty and Ivanhoe, 
Amelia and Sir Charles Grandison, Don Quixote and Sir 
Roger, walking in at the garden-window, you will at once per- 
ceive that Novels and their heroes and heroines are our pres- 
ent subject of discourse, into which we will presently plunge. 
Are you one of us, dear sir, and do you love novel-reading ? 
To be reminded of your first novel will surely be a pleasure to 
you. Hush ! I never read quite to the end of my first, the 
" Scottish Chiefs.'' I couldn't. I peeped in an alarmed furtive 
manner at some of the closing pages. Miss Porter, like a kind 
dear tender-hearted creature, would not have Wallace's head 
chopped off at the end of Vol. V. She made him die in prison,"*^ 
and if I remember right (protesting I have not read the book 
for forty-two or three years), Robert Bruce made a speech to 
his soldiers, in which he said, ^^ And Bannockburn shall equal 
Cambuskenneth." t But I repeat, I could not read the end of 
the fifth volume of that dear delightful book for crying. Good 
heavens ! It was as sad, as sad as going back to school. 

The glorious Scott cycle of romances came to me some four 
or ^.v^ years afterwards ; and I think boys of our year were 
specially fortunate in coming upon those delightful books at 
that special time when we could be^t enjoy them. Oh, that 
sunshiny bench on half-holidays, with Claverhouse or Ivanhoe 
for a companion 1 I have remarked of very late days some 
little men in a great state of delectation over the romances of 
Captain Mayne Reid, and Gustave Aimard's Prairie and Indian 
Stories, and during occasional holiday visits, lurking off to bed 

* I find, on reference to the novel, that Sir William died on the scaffold, not in prison. 
His last words were, " * My prayer is heard. Life's cord is cut by heaven. Helen! 

Helen ! May heaven preserve my country, and ' He stopped. He fell. And with 

that mighty shock the scaffold slipok to its foundation." 

t Tlie remark of Bruce (which I protest I had not read for forty-two years), I find to be 
as follows : — "When this was uttered by the English heralds, Bruce turned to Ruthven, 
with an heroic smile, ' Let him come, my brave barons ! and he shall find that Bannockburn 
shall page with Cambuskenneth!'" In the same amiable author's famous novel of 
*' Thaddeus of Warsaw," there is more crying than in any novel I ever remember to have 
read. See, for example, the last page * * * " Incapable of speaking, Thaddeus led his 
wife back to her carriage. * * * His tears gushed out in spite of himself, and mingling 
with hers, poured those thank?, those assurances, of animated approbation through her 
heart, which made it even ache with excess of happiness." * * * And a sentence or two 
further, " Kosciusko did bless him, and embalmed the benediction with a shower of tears." 



ON A FEAL OF BELLS, 2 1 1 

With the volume under their arms. But are those Indians and 
warriors so terrible as our Indians and warriors were ? (I say, 
are .they ? Young gentlemen, mind, I do not say they are not.) 
But as an oldster I can be heartily thankful for the novels of 
the i-io Geo. IV., let us say, and so downward to a period not 
unremote. Let us see ; there is, first, our dear Scott. Whom 
do I love in the w^orks of that dear old master ? Amo — 

The Baron of Bradwardine, and Fergus. (Captain Waver- 
ley is certainly very mild.) 

Amo Ivanhoe \ LOCKSLEY ; the Templar. 

Amo Quentin Durward, and specially Quentin's uncle, who 
brought the Boar to bay. I forget the gentleman's name. 

I have never cared for the Master of Ravenswood, or 
fetched his hat out of the water since he dropped it there when 
I last met him (circa 1825). 

Amo Saladin and the Scotch knight in the ''Talisman." 
The Sultan best. 

Amo Claverhouse. 

Amo Major Dalgetty. Delightful Major. To think of 
him is to desire to jump up,' run to the book, and get the 
volume down from the shelf. About all those heroes of Scott, 
what a manly bloom there is, and honorable modesty ! They 
are not at all heroic. They seem to blush somehow in their 
position of hero, and as it were to say, " Since it must be done, 
here goes ! " They are handsome, modest, upright, simple, 
courageous, not too clever. If I were a mother (which is 
absurd), I should like to be mother-in-law to several young 
men of the Walter-Scott-hero sort. 

Much as I like those most unassuming, manly, unpretend- 
ing gentlemen, I have to own that I think the heroes of an^ 
other writer, viz : — 

Leather-stocking, 

Uncas, 

Hardheart, 

Tom Coffin, 
are quite the equals of Scott s men ; perhaps Leather-stocking 
is better than any one in '' Scott's lot." La Longue Carabine 
is one of the great prize-men of fiction. He ranks wdth your 
Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de Coveriey, Falstaff — heroic figures, 
all — American or British, and the artist has deserved well of 
liis country w-ho devised them. 

At school, in my time, there was a public day, when the boys' 
relatives, an examining bigwig or two from the universities, old 
school-fellows, and so forth, came to the place. The boys were 



212 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

all paraded ; prizes were administered ; each lad being in a 
new suit of clothes — and magnificent dandies, I promise you, 
some of us were. Oh, the chubby cheeks, clean collars, glossy 
new raiment, beaming faces, glorious in youth— 3/f/ tueri ccehi?n 
— bright with truth, and mirth, and honor ! To see a hundred 
boys marshalled in a chapel or old hall ; to hear their sweet 
fr€sh voices when they chant, and look in their brave calm 
faces ; I say, does not the sight and sound of them smite you, 
somehow, with a pang of exquisite kindness ? ^ ^ * Well. 
As about boys, so about Novelists. I fancy the boys of Par- 
nassus School all paraded. I am a Jower boy myself in that 
academy. I like our fellows to look well, upright, gentleman- 
like. There is Master Fielding — he with the black eye. What 
a magnificent build of a boy ! There is Master Scott, one of 
the heads of the school. Did you ever see the fellow more 
hearty and manly ? Yonder lean, shambling, cadaverous lad, 
who is alv/ays borrowing money, telling lies, leering after the 
housemaids, is Master Laurence Sterne — a bishop'^s grandson, 
and himself intended for the Church ; for shame, you little 
reprobate ! But what a genius the fellow has ! Let him have 
a sound flogging, and as soon as the young scamp is out of the 
whipping- room give him a gold medal. Such would be my 
practice if I were Doctor Birch, and master of the school. 

Let us drop this school metaphor, this birch and all per- 
taining thereto. Our subject, I beg leave to remind the 
reader's humble servant, is novel heroes and heroines. How 
do you like your heroes, ladies .^ Gentlemen, what novel 
heroines do you prefer ? When I set this essay going, I sent 
the above question to two of the most inveterate novel-readers 
of my acquaintance. The gentleman refers me to Miss Aus- 
ten ; the lady says Athos, Guy Livingston, and (pardon my 
rosy blushes) Colonel Esmond, and owns that in youth she 
was very much in love with Valancourt. 

" Valancourt ? and who was he ? " cry the young people. 
Valancourt, my dears, was the hero of one of the most famous 
romances which ever was published in this country. The 
beauty and elegance of Valancourt made your young grand- 
mammas' gentle hearts to beat v/ith respectful sympathy. He 
and his glory have passed away. Ah, woe is me that the glory 
of novels should ever decay ; that dust should gather round 
them on the shelves ; that the annual checks from Messieurs 
the publishers should dwindle, dwindle ! Inquire at Mudie's, 
or the London Library, who asks for the " Mysteries of 
Udolpho " now ? Have not even the '' Mysteries of Paris " 



ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 



2\y 



ceased to frighten ? Alas, our novels are but for a season •, 
and I know characters whom a painful modesty forbids me to 
mention, who shall go to limbo along with '* Valancourt '' and 
" Doricourt " and '• Thaddeus of Warsaw." 

A dear old sentimental friend, with whom I discoursed 
on the subject of novels yesterday, said that her favorite hero 
was Lord Orville, in '' Evelina," that novel which Doctor John- 
son loved so. I took down the book from a dusty old crypt at 
a club, where Mrs. Barbauld's novelists repose : and this is the 
kind of thing, ladies and gentlemen, in which your ancestors 
found pleasure : — 

^* And here, whilst I was looking for the books, I was fol- 
lowed by Lord Orville. He shut the door after he came in, 
and, approaching me with a look of anxiety, said, * Is this true, 
Miss Anville— are you going ? ' 

" * I believe so, my lord,' said I, still looking for the books. 

" • So suddenly, so unexpectedly : must I lose you t ' 

" ' No great loss, my lord,' said I, endeavoring to speak 
cheerfully. 

'* ' Is it possible,' said he, gravely, ' Miss Anville can doubt 
my sincerity t ' 

" * I can't imagine,' cried I, 'what Mrs. Selwyn has done 
with those books.' 

" ' Would to heaven,' continued he, ' I might flatter myself 
you would allow me to prove it ! ' 

" ' I must run up stairs,' cried I, greatly confused, ' and ask 
what she has done with them.' 

" * You are going then,' cried he, taking my hand, ' and you 
give me not the smallest hope of any return ! Will you not, 
my too lovely friend, will you not teach me, with fortitude like 
your own, to support your absence } ' 

*''My lord,' cried I, endeavoring to disengage my hand, 
' pray let me go ! ' 

" ' I will,' cried he, to my inexpressible confusion, dropping 
on one knee, 'if you wish me to leave you.' 

" ' Oh, my lord,' exclaimed I, ' rise, I beseech you ; rise. 
Surely your lordship is not so cruel as to mock me.' 

"' ' Mock you ! ' repeated he earnestly, ' no, I revere you. 
I esteem and admire you above all human beings ! You are 
the friend to whom my soul is attached, as to its better half. 
You are the most amiable, the most perfect of women ; and 
you are dearer to me than language has the power of telling.' 

''I attempt not to describe my sensations at that moment; 
I scarce breathed ; I doubted if I existed ; the blood forsook 



214 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



my^ cheeks, and my feet refused to sustain me. Lord Orville 
hastily rising supported me to a chair upon which I sank al- 
most lifeless: 

'' I cannot write the scene that followed, though every word 
is engraven on my heart ; but his protestations, his expressions, 
were too flattering for repetition \ nor would he, in spite of my 
repeated efforts to leave him, suffer me to escape ; in short, my 
dear sir, I was not proof against his solicitations, and he drew 
from me the most sacred secret of my heart ! " "* 

Other people may not much like this extract, madam, from 
your favorite novel, but when you come to read it, you will like 
it. I suspect that when you read that book which you so love, 
you read it d. deux. Did you not yourself pass a winter at 
Bath, when you were the belle of the assembly? Was there 
not a Lord Orville in your case too ? As you think of him 
eleven lustres pass away. You look at him with the bright 
eyes of those days, and your hero stands before you, the brave, 
the accomplished, the simple, the true gentleman; and he 
makes the most elegant of bows to one of the most beautiful 
young women the world ever saw ; and he leads you out to the 
cotillon, to the dear unforgotten music. Hark to the horns of 
Elf and, blowing, blowing ! Bo7iite vieille^ you remember their 
melody, and your heart-strings thrill with it still. 

Of your heroic heroes, I think our friend Monseigneur 
Athos, Count de la Fere, is my favorite. I have read about 
him from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of 
mind. He has passed through how many volumes ? Forty ? 
Fifty ? I wish for my part there was a hundred more, and 
would never tire of him rescuing prisoners, punishing ruffians, 
and running scoundrels through the midriff with his mostgrace- 

* Contrast this old perfumed, powdered D'Arblay conversation with the present modern 
talk. If the two young people wished to hide their emotions nowadays, and express 
themselves in modest language, the story would run : — 

'* Whilst I was looking for the books. Lord Orville came in. He looked uncommonly 
down in the mouth, as he said : * Is this true, Miss Anville ; are you going to cut ? ' 

" ' To absquatulate, Lord Orville,* said I, still pretending that 1 was looking for the 
books. 

•* ' You're very quick about it,' said he. 

** * Guess it's no great loss,' I remarked, as cheerfully as I could. 

** * You don't think I'm chaffing?' said Orville, with much emotion. 

" ' What has Mrs. Selwyn done with the books ?' I went on. 

*' ' What, going ? ' said he, * and going for good ? I wish I was such a good-plucked one 
as you, Miss Anville,' " &c. 

The conversation, you perceive, might be easily written down to this key ; and if the 
hero and heroine were modern, they would not be suffered to go through their dialogue on 
stilts, but would converse in the natural graceful way at present customary. By the wa}-, 
what a strange custom that is in modern lady novelists to make the men bully the women ! In 
the time of Miss Porter and Madame D'Arblay, we have respect, profound bows and curt* 
seys, graceful courtesy, from men to women. In the time of Miss Bronte, absolute rudeness. 
Is it true, mesdames, that you like rudeness, and are pleased at being ill-used by men ? I 
could point to more than one lady novelist who so represents you. 



ON A PEAL OF BELLS. 



2IS 



ful rapier. Ah, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, you are a mag- 
nificent trio. I think I like d'Artagnan in his own memoirs 
best. I bought him years and years ago, price fivepence, in a 
little parchment-covered Cologne-printed volume, at a stall in 
Gray's Inn Lane. Dumas glorifies him and makes a Marshal 
of him ; if I remember rightly, the original d'Artagnan was a 
needy adventurer, who died in exile very early in Louis XIV.'s 
reign. Did you ever read the ** Chevalier d'Harmenthal ? " 
Did you ever read the "Tulipe Noire,'* as modest as a stor\^ by 
Miss Edgeworth ? I think of the prodigal banquets to which 
this Lucullus of a man has invited me, with thanks and wonder. 
To what a series of splendid entertainments he has treated me ! 
Where does he find the money for these prodigious feasts 1 
They say that all the works bearing Dumas's name are not 
written by him. Well t Does not the chief cook have aides 
under him ? Did not Rubens's pupils paint on his canvases ? 
Had not Lawrence assistants for his backgrounds ? For my- 
self, being also da metier^ I confess I would often like to have 
a competent, respectable, and rapid clerk for the business part;, 
of my novels ; and on his arrival, at eleven o'clock, would say, 
** Mr. Jones, if you please, the archbishop must die this morn- 
ing in about five pages. Turn to article ' Dropsy ' (or what 
you will) in Encyclopaedia. Take care there are no medical 
blunders in his death. Group his daughters, physicians, and 
chaplains round him. in Wales' ' London,' letter B, third shelf, 
you will find an account of Lambeth, and some prints of the 
place. Color in with local coloring. The daughter w'ill come 
down, and speak to her lover in his wherry at Lambeth Stairs," 
&c., &c. Jones (an intelligent young man) examines the medi- 
cal, historical, topographical books necessary ; his chief points 
out to him in Jeremy Taylor (fol., London, m.dclv.) a few re- 
marks, such as might befit a dear old archbishop departing this 
life. When I come back to dress for dinner, the archbishop is 
dead on my table in five pages ; medicine, topography, theology, 
all right, and Jones has gone home to his family some hours. Sir 
Christopher is the architect of St. Paul's. He has not laid the 
stones or carried up the mortar. There is a great deal of car- 
penter's and joiner's work in novels which surely a smart pro- 
fessional hand might supply. A smart professional hand ? I 
give you my word, there seem to me parts of novels — let us say 
the love-making, the ^"business," the villain in the cupboard, 
and so forth, which I should like to order John Footman to 
take in hand, as I desire him to bring the coals and polish the 
boots. Ask me indeed to pop a robber under a bed, to hide a 



2i6 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

will which shall be forthcoming in due season, or at my time 
of life to write a namby-pamby love conversation between Emily 
and Lord Arthur ! I feel .ashamed of myself, and especially 
when my business obliges me to do the love-passages, I blush 
so, though quite alone in my study, that you would fancy I was 
going oif in an apoplexy. Are authors affected by their own 
works ? I don't know about other gentlemen, but if I make a 
joke myself I cry ; if I write a pathetic scene I am laughing 
wildly all the time — at least Tomkins thinks so. You know I 
am such a cynic ! 

' The editor of the Cornhill Magazine (no soft and yielding 
character like his predecessor, but a man of stern resolution) 
will only allow these harmless papers to run to a certain length. 
But for this veto I should gladly have prattled over half a sheet 
more, and have discoursed on many heroes and heroines of 
novels whom fond memory brings back to me. Of these books 
I have been a diligent student from those early days, which are 
recorded at the commencement of this little essay. Oh, de- 
lightful novels, well remembered ! Oh, novels, sweet and deli- 
cious as the raspberry open-tarts of budding boyhood ! Do I 
forget one night after prayers (when we under-boys were sent 
to bed) lingering at my cupboard to read >one little half page 
more of my dear Walter Scott — and down came the monitor's 
dictionary upon my head ! Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of 
York, I have loved thee faithfully for forty years [^ Thou wert 
twenty years old (say) and I but twelve, when I knew thee. 
At sixty odd, love, most of the ladies of thy Orient race have 
lost the bloom of youth, and bulged beyond the line of beauty \ 
but to me thou art ever young and fair, and I will do battle 
wdth any felon Templar who assails thy fair name. 



ON A FEAR-TREE, 



A GRACIOUS reader no doubt has remarked that these humble 
sermons have for subjects some little event which happens at 
the preacher's own gate, or which falls under his peculiar 
cognizance. Once, you may remember, we discoursed about a 
chalk-mark on the door. This morning Betsy, the housemaid, 
comes with a frightenedlook, and says, ^' Law, mum ! there's 



ON A PEAR-TREE. 



217 



three bricks taken out of the garden wall, and the branches 
broke, and all the pears taken off the pear-tree ! " Poor peace- 
ful suburban pear-tree ! Jail-birds have hopped about thy 
branches, and robbed them of their smoky fruit. But those 
bricks removed ; that ladder evidently prepared, by which un- 
known marauders may enter and depart from my little English- 
man's castle ; is not this a subject of thrilling interest, and may 
it not be contiyiuedin a future number :^ — that is the terrible ques- 
tion. Suppose, having escaladed the outer wall, the miscreants 
take a fancy to storm the castle ? Well — well ! we are armed ; 
we are numerous ; we are men of tremendous courage, who 
will defend our spoons with our lives ; and there are barracks 
close by (thank goodness !) whence, at the noise of our shouts 
and firing, at least a thousand bayonets will bristle to our 
rescue. 

What sound is yonder ? A church bell. I might go myself, 
but how listen to the sermon ? I am thinking of those thieves 
who have made a ladder of my wall, and a prey of my pear- 
tree. They may be walking to church at this moment, neatly 
shaved, in clean linen, with every outward appearance of virtue. 
If I went, I know I should be watching the congregation, and 
thinking, " Is that one of the fellows who came over my wall ? " 
If, after the reading of the eighth Commandment, a man sang 
out with particular energy, '' Incline our hearts to keep this 
law," I should think, ^* Aha, Master Basso, did you have pears 
for breakfast this morning ? " Crime is walking round me, 
that is -clear. Who is the perpetrator.^ * # * What a 
changed aspect the world has, since these last few lines were 
written ! I have been walking round about my premises, and 
in consultation with a gentleman in a single-breasted blue coat, 
with pewter buttons, and a tape ornam.ent on the collar. He 
has looked at the holes -in the wall, and the amputated tree. 
We have formed our plan of defence — perhaps of attack. Per- 
Iiaps some day you may read in the papers, " Daring Attempt 
AT Burglary — Heroic Victory over the Villains," &c., &c. 
Rascals as yet unknown ! perhaps you,- too, may read these 
words, and may be induced to pause in your fatal intention. 
Take the advice of a sincere friend, and keep off. To find a 
man writhing in my man-trap, another mayhap impaled in my 
ditch, to pick off another from my tree (scoundrel ! as though 
he were a pear) will give me no pleasure ; but such things may 
happen. Be warned in time, villains ! Or, if you must pursue 
your calling as cracksmen, have the goodness to tr\' some other 
shutters. Enough ! subside into your darkness, children of 



2 1 8 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

night ! Thieves ! we seek not to \i.2c^^you hanged — you are but 
as pegs whereon to hang others. 

I may have said before, that if I were going to be hanged 
myself, I think I should take an accurate note of my sensa- 
tions, request to stop at some public-house on the road to Ty- 
burn, and be provided with a private room and writing-m.aterials, 
and give an account of my state of mind. Then, gee up, car- 
ter ! I beg your reverence to continue your apposite, though 
not novel, remarks on my situation ; — and so we drive up to 
Tyburn turnpike, where an expectant crowd, the obliging sher- 
iffs, and the dexterous and rapid Mr. Ketch are already in 
waiting. 

A number of laboring people are sauntering about our 
streets and taking their rest on this holiday — fellows who have 
no more stolen my pears than they have robbed the crown 
jewels out of the Tower — and I say I cannot help think- 
ing in my own mind, " Are you the rascal who got over 
my wall last night.'*" Is the suspicion haunting my mind 
written on my countenance ? I trust not. What if one man 
after another were to come up to me and say, " How dare you, 
sir, suspect me in your mind of stealing your fruit ? Go be 
hanged, you and your jargonels ! " You rascal thief ! it is not 
merely three-halfp'orth of sooty fruit you rob me of, it is my 
peace of mind — my artless innocence and trust in my fellow- 
creatures, my childlike belief that everything they say is true. 
How can I hold out the hand of friendship in this condition, 
when my first impression is, *' My^good sir, I strongly suspect 
that you were up my pear-tree last night ? " It js a dreadful 
state of mind. The core is black ; the death-stricken fruit 
drops on the bough, and a great worm is within — fattening, 
and feasting, and wriggling ! Who stole the pears 1 I say. 
Is it you, brother ? Is it you, madam ? Come ! are you ready 
to answer — respondere parati et cantare pares ? (O shame ! 
shame !) 

Will the villains ever be discovered and punished who stole 
my fruit? Some unlucky rascals who rob orchards are caught 
up the tree at once. Some rob through life with impunity. If 
I, for my part, were to try and get up the smallest tree, on the 
darkest night, in the most remote orchard, I wager any money 
I should be found out — be caught by the leg in a man-trap, or 
have Towler fastening on me. I always am found out; 
have been ; shall be, It's my luck. Other men will carry off 
bushels of fruit, and get away undetected, unsuspected ; where- 
as I know woe and punishment would fall upon me v/ere I to 



ON A PEAR-TREE. 



219 



lay my hand on the smallest pippin. So be it. A man who 
has this precious self-knowledge will surely keep his hands 
from picking and stealing, and his feet upon the paths of 
virtue. 

I will assume, my benevolent friend and present reader, that 
you yourself are virtuous, not from a fear of punishment, but 
from a sheer love of good : but as you and I walk through 
life, consider what hundreds of thousands of rascals we 
must have met, who have not been found out at all. In 
high places and low, in Clubs and on 'Change, at church 
or the balls and routs of the nobility and gentry, how 
dreadful it is for benevolent beings like you and me to 
have to think these undiscovered though not unsuspected 
scoundrels are swarming ! What is the difference between you 
and a galley-slave ? Is yonder poor wretch at the hulks not a 
man and a brother too ? Have you ever forged, my dear sir ? 
Have you ever cheated your neighbor ? Have you ever ridden 
to Hounslow Heath and robbed the mail? 'Have you ever 
entered a first-class railway-carriage, where an old gentleman 
sat alone in a sweet sleep, daintily murdered him, taken his 
pocket-book, and got out at the next station 1 You know that 
this circumstance occurred in France a few months since. If 
we have travelled in France this autumn we may have met the 
ingenious gentleman who perpetrated this daring and successful 
coup. We may have found him a well-informed and agreeable 
man. I have been acquainted with two or three gentlemen 
who have been discovered after — after the performance of ille- 
gal actions. What ? That agreeable rattling fellow we met 
was the celebrated Mr. John Sheppard ? Was that amiable 
quiet gentleman in spectacles the well-known Mr. Fauntleroy ? 
In Hazlitt's admirable paper, " Going to a Fight,'' he de- 
scribes a dashing sporting fellow who was in the coach, and who 
was no less a man than the eminent destroyer of Mr. William 
Weare. Don't tell me that you would not like to have met (out of 
business) Captain Sheppard, the Reverend Doctor Dodd, or 
others rendered famous by their actions and misfortunes, by 
their lives and their deaths. They are the subjects of bal- 
lads, the heroes of romance. A friend of mine had the house 
in May Fair, out of which poor Doctor Dodd w^as taken hand- 
cuffed. There was the paved hall over which he stepped. 
That little room at the side was, no doubt, the study where 
he composed his elegant sermons. Two years since I had 
the good fortune to partake of some a^dmirable dinners 
~n Tyburnia — magnificent dinners indeed ; but rendered 



220 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

doubly interesting from the fact that the house was that oc- 
cupied by the late Mr. Sadleir. One night the late Mr. Sad- 
leir took tea in that, dining-room, and, to the surprise of his 
butler, went out, having put into his pocket his own cream-jug. 
The next morning, you know, he was found dead on Hamp- 
stead Heath, with the cream-jiig lying by him, into which he 
poured the poison by which he died. The idea of the ghost of 
the late gentleman flitting about the room gave a strange interest 
to the banquet. Can you fancy him taking his tea alone in the 
dining-room ? He empties that cream-jug and puts it in his 
pocket ; and then he opens yonder door, through which he is 
never to pass again. Now he crosses the hall : and hark! the 
hall-door shuts upon him, and his steps die away. They are gone 
into the night. They traverse the sleeping city. They lead him 
into the fields, where the gray morning is beginning to glim- 
mer. He pours something from a bottle into a little silver jug. 
It touches his lips, the lying lips. Do they quiver a prayer ere 
that awful draught is swallowed ? When the sun rises they 
are dumb. 

I neither knew this unhappy man, nor his countryman — 
Laertes let us call him — who is at present in exile, having been 
com.pelled to fly from remorseless creditors. Laertes fled to 
America, where he earned his bread by his pen. I own to 
having a kindly feeling towards this scapegrace, because, though 
an exile, he did not abuse the country whence he fled. I have 
heard that he went away taking no spoil with him, penniless 
almost ; and on his voyage he made acquaintance with a cer- 
tain Jew ; and when he fell sick, at New York, this Jew be- 
friended him, and gave him help and money out of his own 
store, which was but small. Now, after they had been awhile 
in the strange city, it happened that the poor Jew spent all his 
little money, and he too fell ill, and was in great penury. And 
now it was Laertes who befriended that Ebrew Jew. He fee'd 
doctors ; he fed and' tended the sick and hungry. Go to, 
Laertes ! I know thee not. It may be thou art justly exid 
patrice. But the Jew shall intercede for thee, thou not, let us 
trust, hopeless Christian sinner. 

Another exile to the same shore I knew : who did not ? 
Julius Caesar hardly owed more money than Cucedicus : and, 
gracious powers ! Cucedicus, how did you manage to spend 
and owe so much ? All day he was at work for his clients ; at 
night he was occupied in the Public Council. He neither had 
wife nor children. The rewards which he received for his 
orations were enough to maintain twenty rhetoricians. Night 



ON A PEAR- TREE. 221 

after night I have seen him eating his frugal meal, consisting 
but of a fish, a small portion of mutton, and a small measure 
of Iberian or Trinacrian wine, largely diluted with the sparkling 
waters of Rhenish Gaul. And this was all he had ; and this 
man earned and paid away talents upon talents ; and fled, 
owing who knows how many more ! Does a man earn fifteen 
thousand pounds a year, toiling by day, talking by night, having 
horrible unrest in his bed, ghastly terrors at waking, seeing an 
officer lurking at every corner, a sword of justice for ever hang- 
ing over his head — and have for his sole diversion a newspaper, 
a lonely mutton-chop, and a little sherry and seltzer-water ? 
In the German stories we read how men sell themselves to— a 
certain Personage, and that Personage cheats them. He gives 
them wealth ; yes, but the gold pieces turn into worthless leaves. 
He sets them before splendid banquets ; yes, but what an awful 
grin that black footman has who lifts up the dish-cover ; and 
don't you smell a peculiar sulphurous odor in the dish ? Faugh ! 
take it away ; I can't eat. He promises them splendors and 
triumphs. The conqueror's car rolls glittering through the 
city, the multitude shout and huzza. Drive on, coachman. 
Yes, but who is that hanging on behind the carriage ? Is this 
the reward of eloquence, talents, industry ? Is this the end of 
a life's labor? Don't you remember how, when the dragon 
was infesting the neighborhood of Babylon, the citizens used 
to walk dismally out of evenings, and look at the valleys roupd 
about strewed with the bones of the victims whom the monster 
had devoured ? O insatiate brute, and most disgusting, brazen, 
and scaly reptile ! Let us be thankful, children, that it has not 
gobbled us up too. Quick. Let us turn away, and pray 
that we may be kept out of the reach of his horrible maw, jaw, 
claw ! 

When I first came up to London, as innocent as Monsieur 
Gil Bias, I also fell in with some pretty acquaintances, found 
my way into several caverns, and delivered my purse to more 
than one gallant gentleman of the road. One I remember 
especially — one who never eased me personally of a single 
maravedi — one than whom I never met a bandit more gallant, 
courteous, and amiable. Rob me ? Rolando feasted me ; 
treated me to his dinner and his wine ; kept a generous table 
for his friends, and I know was most liberal to many of them. 
How well I remember one of his speculations ! It was a great 
plan for smuggling tobacco. Revenue officers were to be bought 
ofT ; silent ships were to ply on the Thames ; cunning depots 
were to be established, and hundreds of thousands of pounds 



222 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

to be made by the coup. How his kind eyes kindled as he 
propounded the scheme to me 1 How easy anci certain it 
seemed ! It might have succeeded : I can't say: but the bold 
and merry, the hearty and kindly Rolando came to grief — a 
little matter of imitated signatures occasioned a Bank pros- 
ecution of Rolando the Brave. He walked about armed, and 
vowed he would never be taken alive : but taken he was ; tried, 
condemned, sentenced to perpetual banishment ; and I heard 
that for some time he was universally popular in the colony 
which had the honor to possess him. What a song he could 
sing ! 'Twas when the cup was sparkling before us, and heaven 
gave a portion of its blue, boys, blue, that I remember the song 
of Roland at the *' Old Piazza Coffee-house." And now where 
is the ''Old Piazza Coffee-house.^" Where is Thebes.^ where 
is Troy ? where is the Colossus of Rhodes t Ah, Rolando, 
Rolando ! thou wert a gallant captain, a cheery, a handsome, a 
m-erry. At me thou never presentedst pistol. Thou badest the 
bumper of Burgundy fill, fill for me, giving those who preferred 
it Champagne. Coeium no?i a?ii?num, &c. Do you think he has 
reformed now that he has crossed the sea, and changed the air? 
I have my own opinion. Howbeit, Rolando, thou wert a most 
kind and hospitable bandit. And I love not to think of thee 
with a chain at thy shin. 

Do you know how all these memories of unfprtunate men 
have come upon me ? When they came to frighten me this 
mxorning by speaking of my robbed pears, my perforated garden 
wall, I was reading an article in the Saturday Review about 
Rupilius. I have sat near that young man at a public dinner, 
and beheld him in a gilded uniform. But yesterday he lived in 
splendor, had long hair, a flowing beard, a jewel at his neck, 
and a smart surtout. So attired, he stood but yesterday in 
court ; and to-day he sits over a bowl of prison cocoa, with a 
shaved head, and in a felon's jerkin. 

That beard and head shaved, that gaudy deputy-lieutenant's 
coat exchanged for felon uniform, and your daily bottle of 
champagne for prison cocoa, my poor Rupilius, what a comfort 
it must be to have the business brought to an end ! Champagne 
was the honorable gentleman's drink in the House of Commons 
dining-room, as I am informed. What uncommonly dry cham- 
pagne that must have been 1 When we saw him outwardly 
happy, how miserable he must have been ! when we thought 
him prosperous, how dismally poor ! When the great Mr. 
Harker, at the public dinners called out — " Gentlemen, charge 
your glasses, and please silence for the Honorable Member 



DESSEIiV'S. 



223 



for Lambeth ! " how that Honorable Member must have writhed 
inwardly ! One day, when there was a talk of a gentleman's 
honor being questioned, Rupilius said, " If any man doubted 
mine, I would knock him down." But that speech was in the 
way of business. The Spartan boy, who stole the fox, smiled 
while the beast was gnawing him under his cloak : I promise 
you Rupilius had some siiarp fangs gnashing under his. We 
have sat at the same feast, I say : we have paid our contribution 
to the same charity. Ah ! when I ask this day for my daily 
bread, I pray not to be led into temptation, and to be delivered 
from evil. 



nJ£SSEIN'S. 



I ARRIVED by the night-mail packet from Dover. The passage 
had been rough, and the usual consequences had ensued. I was 
disinclined to travel farther that night on my road to Paris, and 
knew the Calais hotel of old as one of the cleanest, one of the 
dearest, one of the most comfortable hotels on the continent 
of Europe. There is no town more French than Calais. That 
charming old '' Hotel Dessein," with its court, its gardens, its 
lordly kitchen, its ^princely waiter — a gentleman of the old 
school, who has welcomed the finest company in Europe — 
have long been known to me. I have read complaints in The 
Times, more than once, I think, that the Dessein bills are dear. 

A bottle of soda-water certainly costs well, never mind how 

much. I remember as a boy, at the ^^ Ship " at Dover (im- 
perante Carolo Decimo), when, my place to London being 
paid, I had but 12s, left a.fter a certain little Paris excursion 
(about which my benighted parents never knew anything), or- 
dering for dinner a whiting, a beefsteak, and a glass of negus, 
and the bill was, dinner 7^"., glass of negus 2^., waiter 6d., and 
only half a crown left, as I was a sinner, for the guard and 
coachman on the way to London ! And I was a sinner. I 
had gone without leave. What a long, dreary, guilty forty 
hours' journey it was from Paris to Calais, I remember ! How 
did I come to think of this escapade, which occurred in the 
Easter vacation of the year 1830 ? I always think of it when 
I am crossing to Calais. Guilt, sir, remains stamped on the 
memory, and I feel easier in my mind now that it is liberated of 
this old peccadillo. I met my college tutor only yesterday. We 
were travelling, and stopped at the same hotel. He had the 



224 ROUiVDABOUT PAPERS. 

very next room to mine. After he had gone into his apart- 
ment, having shaken me quite kindly by the hand, I felt in- 
clined to knock at his door and say, '' Doctor Bentley, I beg 
your pardon, but do you remember, when I was going down at 
the Easter vacation in 1830, yoii asked me where I was going 
to spend my vacation ? And I said. With my friend Slingsby, 
in Huntingdonshire. Well, sir, I grieve to have to confess 
that I told you a fib. I had got 20/. and was going for a lark 
to Paris, where my friend Edw^ards w^as staying." There, it is 
out. The Doctor will read it, for I did not wake him up after 
all to make my confession, but protest he shall have a copy 
of this Roundabout sent to him when he returns to his lodge. 

They gave me a bedroom there ; a very neat room on the 
first floor, looking into the pretty garden. The hotel must look 
pretty much as it did a hundred years ago when he visited it. 
I wonder whether he paid his bill t Yes :' his journey was just 
begun. He had borrov/ed or got the money somehow. Such 
a man would spend it liberally enough when he had it, give 
generously — nay, drop a tear over the fate of the poor fellow 
wdiom he relieved. I don't believe a word he says, but I never 
accused him of stinginess about money. That is a fault of 
much more virtuous people than he. Mr. Laurence is ready 
enough with his purse when there are anybody's guineas in it. 
Still wdien I went to bed in the room, in 7iis room ; when I 
think how I admire, dislike, and have abused him, a certain 
dim feehng of apprehension filled my mind at the midnight 
hour. What if I should see his lean figure in the blacksatin 
breeches, his sinister smile, his long thin finger pointing to me 
in the moonlight (for I am in bed, and have popped my candle 
out), and he should say, " You mistrust me, you hate me, do 
you ? And you, don't you know how Jack, Tom, and Harry, 
your brother authors, hate youV I grin and laugh in the 
moonlight, in the midnight, in the silence. " O you ghost in 
blacksatin breeches and a wig ! I like to be hated by some 
men," I say. *^I know men whose lives are a scheme, whose 
laughter is a conspiracy, whose smile means something else, 
w^iose hatred is a cloak, and I had rather these men should 
hate me than not." 

"• My good sir," says he, with a ghastly grin on his lean- 
face, '''' you have your wish." 

'•^ Apres ? " I say. " Please let me go to sleep. I sha'n't 
sleep any the worse because " 

'' Because there are insects in the bed, and they sting you ? '' 
(This is only by way of illustration, my good sir ; the animals 



DESSEIN'S. 225 

don't bite me now. All the house at present seems to me ex- 
cellently clean.) " 'Tis absurd to affect this indifference. If 
you are thin-skinned, and the reptiles bite, they keep you from 
sleep." 

'• There are some men who cry out at a flea-bite as loud as 
if they were torn by a vulture/' I growL 

*' Men of the ge?ius irritabile^ my worthy good gentleman ! 
— and you are one.'' 

" Yes, sir, I am of the profession, as you say ; and I dare 
say make a great shouting and crying at a small hurt." 

*^ You are ashamed of that quality by which you earn your 
subsistence, and such reputation as you have .^ Your sensibil- 
ity is your livelihood, my worthy friend. You feel a pang of 
pleasure or pain ? It is noted in your memory, and some day 
or other makes its appearance in your manuscript. Why, in 
your last Roundabout rubbish you mention jeading your first 
novel on the day when King George IV. was crowned. I re- 
member him in his cradle at St. James's, a lovely little babe ; 
a gilt Chinese railing was before him, and I dropped the tear 
of sensibility as I gazed on the sleeping cherub." 

'^ A tear — a fiddlestick, Mr. Sterne," I growled out, for of 
course I knew my friend in the wig and satin breeches to be 
no other than the notorious, nay, celebrated Mr. Laurence 
Sterne. 

'' Does not the sight of a beautiful infant charm and melt 
you, mo7i ami ? If not, I pity you. Yes, he was beautiful. I 
was in London the year he was born. I used to breakfast at 
the ' Mount Coffee-house.' I did not become the fashion until 
two years later, when my ' Tristram ' made his appearance, 
who has held his own for a hundred years. By the way, ?no7i 
bon monsieur^ how many authors of your present time will last 
till the next century ? Do you think Brown will ? " 

I laughed with scorn as I lay in my bed (and so did the 
ghost give a ghastly snigger). 

" Brown ! " I roared. " One of the most overrated men 
that ever put pen to paper! " 

" What do you think of Jones ? " 

1 grew indignant with this old cynic. " As a reasonable 
ghost, come out of the other world, you don't mean," I said, " to 
ask me a serious opinion of Mr. Jones 1 His books may be 
very good reading for maid-servants and school-boys, but you 
don't ask me to read them ? As a scholar yourself you must 
know that " 



"Well, then, Robinson?" 



IS 



226 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

" Robinson, I am told, has merit. I dare say ; I never 
have been able to read his books, and can't, therefore, form any 
opinion about Mr. Robinson. At least you will allow that 1 
am not speaking in a prejudiced manner about himJ^ 

"Ah! I see you men of letters have "your cabals and 
jealousies, as we had in my time. There was an Irish fellow 
by the name of Gouldsmith, who used to abuse me ; but he 
went into no genteel company — and faith ! it mattered little, his 
praise or abuse. I never was more surprised than when I heard 
that Mr. Irving, an American gentleman of parts and elegance, 
had wrote the fellow's life. To make a hero of that man, my 
d^ar sir, 'twas ridiculous 1 You followed in the fashion, I hear, 
and chose to lay a wreath before this queer little idol. Pre- 
posterous ! A pretty writer, who has turned some neat couplets. 
Bah ! I have no patience with Master Posterity, that has 
chosen to take up this fellow, and make a hero of him ! And 
there was another gentleman of my time, Mr. Thiefcatcher 
Fielding, forsooth ! a fellow with the strength, and the tastes, 
and the manners of a porter ! What madness has possessed 
you all to bow before that Calvert Butt of a man ? — a creature 
without elegance or sensibility ! The dog had spirits, certainly. 
I remember my Lord Bathurst praising them : but as for read- 
ing his books — 7nafoi, I would as lief go and dive for tripe in 
a cellar. The man's vulgarity stifles me. He wafts me whiffs 
of gin. Tobacco and onions are in his great coarse laugh, 
which choke me^ pardi ; and I don't think much better of the 
other fellow — the Scots' gallipot purveyor — Peregrine Clinker, 
Humphrey Random — how did the fellow call his rubbish .? " 
Neither of these men had the bel air, the bo?t ion, the Je ne sais 
quoi. Pah ! If I meet them in my walks by our Stygian river, 
I give them a wide berth, as that hybrid apothecary fellow would 
say. An ounce of civet, good apothecary ; horrible, horrible ! 
The mere thought of the coarseness of those men gives me the 
chair de poule, Mr. Fielding, especially, has no more sensi- 
bility than a butcher in Fleet Market. He takes his heroes 
out of alehouse kitchens, or worse places still. And this is the 
person whom Posterity has chosen to honor along with me — 
me ! Faith, Monsieur Posterity, you have put me in pretty com- 
pany, and I see you are no wiser than we were in our time. 
Mr. Fielding, forsooth ! Mr. Tripe and Onions ! Mr. Cow- 
heel and Gin ! Thank you for nothing, Monsieur Posterity!" 

" And so," thought I, " even among these Stygians this envy 
and quarrelsomeness (if you will permit me the word) survive ? 
What a pitiful meanness ! To be sure, I can understand this 



DESSEIN'S, 



227 



feeling to a certain extent ; a sense of justice will prompt it. 
In my own case, I often feel myself forced to protest against 
the absurd praises lavished on contemporaries. Yesterday, for 
instance, Lady Jones was good enough to praise one of my 
works. IVcs bien. But in the very next minute she began, 
with quite as great enthusiasm, to praise Miss Hobson's last 
romance. My good creature, what is that v.oman's praise wortii 
who absolutely admires the WTitings of Miss Hobson .^ I offer 
a friend a bottle of '44 claret, fit for a pontifical supper. * This 
is capital wine,' says he ; ' and now we have finished the bottle, 
v;ill you give me a bottle of that ordinaire we drank the other 
day 1 ' Very well, my good man. You are a good judge — of or- 
dinaire, I dare say. Nothing so provokes my anger, and rouses 
my sense of justice, as to hear other men undeser\'edly praised. 
In a word, if you wish to remain friends with me, don't praise 
anybody. You tell me that the Venus de' Medici is beautiful, 
or Jacob Omnium is tall. Que diahle I Can't I judge for my- 
self 1 Haven't I eyes and a foot-rule .^ I don't think the Venus 
is so handsome, since you press me. She is pretty, but she has 
no expression. And as for Mr. Omnium, I can see much taller 
men in a fair for twopence." 

*' And so," I said, turning round to Mr. Sterne, **you are 
actually jealous of Mr. Fielding } O you men of letters, you 
men of letters ! Is not the world (j^our world, I mean) big 
enough for all of you ? " 

I often travel in my sleep. I often of a night find myself 
walking in my night-gown about the gray streets. It is awk- 
ward at first, but somehow nobody makes any remark. I glide 
along over the ground with my naked feet. The mud does not 
wet them. The passers-by do not tread on them. I am wafted 
over the ground, down the stairs, through the doors. This sort 
of travelling, dear friends,- 1 am sure you have all of you in- 
dulged. 

Well, on the night in question (and, if you wish to know the 
precise date, it was the 31st of September last), after having 
some little conversation with Mr. Sterne in our bedroom, I 
must have got up, though I protest I don't know how, and come 
down stairs with him into the coffee-room of the " Hotel Des- 
sein," where the moon was shining, and a cold supper was laid 
out. I forget what we had — " vol-au-vent d'ceufs de Phenix — 
a2:neau aux pistaches a la Barmecide," — what matters what we 
had? 

" As regards supper this is certain, the less you have of it 
the better." 



228 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

That is what one of the guests remarked, — a shabby old 
man, in a wig, and such a dirty, ragged, disreputable dressing- 
gown that I should have been quite surprised at him, only one 
never is surprised in dr under certain circumstances. 

*^ I can't eat 'em now," said the greasy man (wdth his false 
old teeth, I wonder he could eat anything). ** I remember Al- 
vanley eating three suppers once at Carlton House — one night 
de petite comiteT 

^' Fetit comite, sir," said Mr. Sterne. . 

" Dammy, sir, let me tell my own story my own way. I say, 
one night at Carlton House, playing at blind-hookey with 
York, Wales, Tom Raikes, Prince Boothby, and Dutch Sam the 
boxer, Alvanley ate three suppers, and won three-and-twenty 
hundred pounds in ponies. Never saw a fellow with such an 
appetite, except Wales in his good time. But he destroyed the 
finest digestion a man ever had with maraschino, by Jove — 
always at it." 

*' Try mine," said Mr. Sterne. 

^' What a doosid queer box," says Mr. Brummell. 

" I had it from a Capuchin friar in this town. The box is 
but a horn one ; but to the nose of sensibility Araby's perfume 
is not more delicate." 

^'I call it doosid stale old rappee," says Mr. Brummell — 
(as for me I declare I could not smell anything at all in either" 
of the boxes.) " Old boy in smock-frock, take a pinch ? '■ 

The old boy in the smock-frock, as Mr. Brummell called him, 
was a very old man, with long wdiite beard, wearing not a smock- 
frock, but a shirt ; and he had actually nothing else save a rope 
round his neck, which hung behind his chair in the queerest 
way. 

^' Fair sir," he said, turning f o Mr. Brummell, '' when the 
Prince of Wales and his father laid siege to our town " 



" What nonsense are you talking, old cock ? " says Mr. 
Brummell ; " Wales was never here. His late Majesty George 
IV. passed through on his way to Hanover. My good man, 
you don't seem to know what's up at all. What is he talkin' 
about the siege of Calais 1 I lived here fifteen years ! Ought 
to know. What's his old name ? " 

" I am Master Eustace of Saint Peter's," said the old gen- 
tleman in the shirt. '' When my Lord King Edward laid siege 
to this city " 

'' Laid siege to Jericho ! " cries Mr. Brummell. *' The old 
man is cracked — cracked, sir ! " 

" Laid siege to this city," continued the old man, " I 



DESSEIN'S. 



229 



and five more promised Messire Gautier de Mauny that we 
would give ourselves up as ransom for the place. And we came 
before our Lord King Edward, attired as you see, and the fair 
queen begged our lives out of her gramercy/' 

" Queen, nonsense ! you mean the Princess of Wales — 
pretty woman, petit ?iez retrousse, grew monstrous stout ? " sug- 
gested Mr. Brummell, whose reading was evidently not exten- 
sive. " Sir Sidney Smith was a fine fellow, great talker, hook 
nose, so has Lord Cochrane, so has Lord Wellington. She was 
very sweet on Sir Sidney." 

"Your acquaintance with the history of Calais does not 
seem to be considerable," said Mr. Sterne to Mr. Brummell, 
with a shrug. 

" Don't it, bishop ? — for I conclude you are a bishop by 
your wig. I know Calais as well as any man. I lived here 
for years before I took that confounded consulate at Caen. 
Lived in this hotel, then at Leleux's. People used to stop 
here. Good fellows used to ask for George Brummell ; Hert- 
ford did, so did the Duchess of Devonshire. Not know Calais 
indeed ! That is a good joke. Had many a good dinner 
here : sorry I ever left it." 

" My Lord King Edward," chirped the queer old gentle- 
man in the shirt, " colonized the place with his English, after 
we had yielded it up to him. I have heard tell they kept it 
for nigh three hundred years, till my Lord de Guise took it 
from a fair Queen, Mary of blessed memory, a holy w^oman. 
Eh, but Sire Gautier of Mauny was a good knight, a valiant 
captain, gentle and courteous withal ! Do you remember his 
ransoming the ? " 

" What is the old fellow twaddlin' about .^ " cries Brummell. 
" He is talking about some knight ? — I never spoke to a 
knight, and very seldom to a baronet. Firkins, my butterman, 
was a knight — a knight and alderman. Wales knighted him 
once on going into the City." 

" I am not surprised that the gentleman should not under- 
stand Messire Eustace of St. Peter's," said the ghostly indi- 
vidual addressed as Mr. Sterne. " Your reading doubtless has 
not been very extensive ? " 

" Dammy, sir, speak for yourself ! " cries Mr. Brummell, 
testily. " I never professed to be a reading man, but I was as 
good as my neighbors. Wales wasn't a reading man ; York 
wasn't a reading man ; Clarence wasn't a reading man ; Sussex 
w^as, but he wasn't a man in societ}''. I remember reading your 
* Sentimental Journey, old boy ; read it to the Duchess at Beau- 



230 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



voir, I recollect, and she cried over it Doosid clever amusing 
book, and does you great credit. Birron wrote doosid clever 
books, too ; so did Monk Lewis. George Spencer was an 
elegant poet, and my dear Duchess of Devonshire, if she had 
not been a grande dame, would have beat 'em all, by George. 
Wales couldn't write : he could sing, but he couldn't spell." 

" Ah, you know the great world ? so did I in my time, Mr. 
Brummell. I have had the visiting tickets of half the nobility 
at my lodgings in Bond Street. But they left me there no 
more cared for than last year's calendar," sighed Mr. Sterne. 
" I wonder who is the mode in London now ? One of our late 
arrivals, my Lord Macaulay, has prodigious merit and learning, 
and, faith, his histories are more amusing than any novels, my 
own included." 

" Don't know, I'm sure ; not in my line. Pick this bone of 
chicken," says Mr. Brummell, trifling with a skeleton bird be- 
fore him. 

" I remember in this city of Calais worse fare than yon 
bird," said old Mr. Eustace of Saint Peter's. " Marry, sirs, 
when my Lord King Edward laid siege to us, lucky was he 
who could get a slice of horse for his breakfast, and a rat 
was sold at the price of a hare." 

" Hare is coarse food, never tasted rat," remarked the 
Beau. "• Table-d'hote poor fare enough for a man like me, who 
has been accustomed to the best of cookery. But rat — stifle 
me 1 I couldn't swallow that : never could bear hardship at 
all." 

" We had to bear enough when my Lord of England pressed 
us. 'Twas pitiful to see the faces of our women as the siege 
went on, and hear the little ones asking for dinner." 

" Always a bore, children. At dessert, they are bad 
enough, but at dinner they're the deuce and all," remarked Mr. 
Brummell. 

Messire Eustace of St. Peter's did not seem to pay much 
attention to the Beau's remarks, but continued his own train of 
thought as old men will do. 

*' I hear," said he, "that there has actually been no war 
between us of France and you men of England for wellnigh 
fifty year. Ours has ever been a nation of warriors. And 
besides her regular found men-at-arms, 'tis said the English of 
the present time have more than a hundred thousand of archers 
with weapons that will carry for half a mile. And a multitude 
have come amongst us of late from a great Western country, 
never so much as heard of in my time — valiant men and great 



y DESSEIN'S. 



231 



drawers of the long-bow, and they say they have ships in ar- 
mor that no shot can penetrate. Is it so ? Wonderful ! The 
best armor, gossips, is a stout heart." 

**And if ever manly heart beat under shirt-frill, thine is 
that heart, Sir Eustace ! '' cried Mr. Sterne, enthusiastically. 

" We, of France, were never accused of lack of courage, 
sir, in so far as I know," said Messire Eustace. ''We have 
shown as much in a thousand wars with you English by sea 
and land ; and sometimes we conquered, and sometimes, as is 
the fortune of war, we wer^ discomfited. And notably in a 

great sea-fight which befell off Ushant on the first of June 

Our Amiral, Messire Villaret de Joyeuse, on board his galleon 
named the * Vengeur,' being sore pressed by an English bom- 
bard, rather than yield the crew of his ship to mercy, deter- 
mined to go down with all on board of her : and to the cry of 

Vive la Repub or, I would say, of Notre Dame a la Res- 

cousse, he and his crew all sank to an immortal grave " 

*' Sir," said I, looking v;ith amazement at the old gentle- 
man, "" Surely, surely there is some mistake in your statement. 
Permit me to observe that the action of the first of June took 
place five hundred years after your time, and " 

'• Perhaps I am confusing my dates," said the old gentle- 
man, with a faint blush. *' You say I am mixing up the trans- 
actions of my time on earth with the story of my successors ? 
It may be so. We take no count of a few centuries more or 
less in our dwelling by the darkling Stygian river. Of late, 
there came amongst us a good knight, Messire de Cambronne, 
who fought against you English in the country of Flanders, 
being captain of the guard of my Lord the King of France, 
in a famous battle where you English would have been utterly 
routed but for the succor of the Prussian heathen. This Messire 
de Cambronne, when bidden to yield by you of England, an- 
swered this, ' The guard dies, but never surrenders / and fought 
a long time afterwards, as became a good knight. In our 
wars with you of England it may have pleased the Fates to 
give you the- greater success, but on our side, also, there has 
been no lack of brave deeds performed by brave men." 

'^ King Edward may have been the victor, sir, as being the 
strongest, but you are the hero of the siege of Calais ! " cried 
Mr. Sterne. *' Your story is sacred, and your name has been 
blessed for five hundred years. Wherever men speak of patriot- 
ism and sacrifice, Eustace of Saint Pierre shall be beloved and 
remembered. I prostrate myself before the bare feet which 
stood before King Edward. What collar of chivalry is to be 



232 ROUNDABQUT PAPERS. 

compared to that glorious order which you wear ? Think, sir, 
how out of the myriad millions of our race, you, and some few 
more, stand forth as exemplars of duty and honor. Fortunati 
nimium / '' 

''Sir,'' said the old gentleman, ''I did but my duty at a 
painful moment ; and 'tis matter of wonder to me that men 
talk still, and glorify such a trifling matter. By our Lady's 
grace, in the fair kingdom of France, there are scores of thou- 
sands of men, gentle and simple, who would do a$ I did. 
Does not every sentinel at his post, does not every archer in 
the front of battle, brave it, and die where his captain bids 
him ? Who am I that I should be chosen out of all France to 
be an example of fortitude? I braved no tortures, though 
these I trust Fwould have endured with a good heart. I was 
subject to threats only. Who was the Roman knight of whom 
the Latin clerk Horatius tells ? " 

"A Latin clerk? Faith, I forget my Latin," says Mr. 
Brummell. " Ask the parson here." 

" Messire Regulus^ I remember, was his name. Taken pris- 
oner by the Saracens, he gave his knightly word, and was per- 
mitted to go seek a ransom among his own people. Being 
unable to raise the sum that was a fitting ransom for such a 
knight, he returned to Afric, and cheerfully submitted to the 
tortures which the Paynims inflicted. And 'tis said he took 
leave of his friends as gayly as though he were going to a vil- . 
lage kermes, or riding to his garden house in the suburbs of 
the city." 

"Great, good, glorious man ! " cried Mr. Sterne, very much 
moved. ''Let me embrace that gallant hand and bedew it 
w^ith my tears ! As long as honor lasts thy name shall be re- 
membered. See this dewdrop twinkling on my cheek ! 'Tis 
the sparkling tribute that Sensibility pays to Valor. Though 
in my life and practice I may turn from Virtue, believe me, I 
never have ceased to honor her ! Ah, Virtue ! Ah, Sensi- 
bility ! Oh- " 

Here Mr. Sterne was interrupted by a monk of the Order 
of St. Francis, who stepped into the room, and begged us all 
to take a pinch of his famous old rappee. I suppose the snuil 
was very pungent, for, with a great start, I woke up ; and now 
perceived that I must have been dreaming altogether. " Des- 
sein's " of nowadays is not the "Dessein's " which Mr. Sterne, 
and Mr. Brummell, and I recollect in the good old times. The 
town of Calais has bought the old hotel, and " Dessein " has 
gone over to " Quillacq's." And I was there yesterday. And 



ON SOME CARP A T SANS SOUCI. 233 

I remember old diligences, and old postilions in pigtails and 
jackboots, who were once as alive as I am, and whose crack- 
ing whips I have heard in the midnight many and many a time. 
Now, where are they ? Behold, they have been ferried ovei 
Styx, and have passed away into limbo. 

I wonder what time does my boat go ? Ah ! Here comes 
the waiter bringing me my little bill. 



ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI. 

We have lately made the acquaintance of an old lady of 
ninety, who has passed the last twenty-five years of her old life 
in a great metropolitan establishment, the workhouse, namely, 
of the parish of Saint Lazarus. Stay — twenty-three or four 
years ago, she came out once, and thought to earn a little 
money by hop-picking ; but being overworked, and having to 
lie out at night, she got a palsy which has incapacitated her 
from all further labor, and which has caused her poor old limbs 
to shake ever since. 

An illustration of that dismal proverb which tells us how 
poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows,. this 
poor old shaking body has to lay herself down every night in 
her workhouse bed by the side of some other old woman with 
whom she may or may not agree. She herself can't be a very 
pleasant bedfellow, poor thing ! with her shaking old limbs and 
cold feet. She lies awake a deal of the night, to be sure, not 
thinking of happy old times, for hers never were happy ; but 
sleepless with aches, and agues, and rheumatism of old age. 
" The gentleman gave me brandy-and-water," she said, her old 
voice shaking with rapture at the thought. I never had a 
great love for Queen Charlotte, but I like her better now 
from what this old lady told me. The Queen, who loved snuff 
herself, has left a legacy of snuff to certain poorhouses ; and, 
in her watchful nights, this old woman takes a pinch of Queen 
Charlotte's snuft^, "and it do comfort me, sir, that it do!." 
Pulveris exigui 77iumis, Here is a forlorn aged creature, shak- 
ing with palsy, with no soul among the great struggling multi^ 
tude of mankind to care for her, not quite trampled out of life, 
but past and forgotten in the rush, made a little happy, and 
soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me 



234 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness ! 
is safe in press.) This discourse will appear at the season 
when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance ; at 
the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, 
jollifications for school-boys ; Christmas bills, and reminis- 
cences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters 
are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of merriment. 
We shall see the young folks laughing round the holly-bush. 
W^ shall pass the bottle round cosily as we sit .by the fire. 
That old thing will have a sort of festival too. Beef, beer, and 
pudding will be served to her for that day also. Christmas 
falls on a Thursday. Friday is the workhouse day for coming 
out. Mary, remember that old Goody Twoshoes has her invi- 
tation for Friday, 26th December! Ninety is she, poor old 
soul 1 Ah ! what a bonny face to catch under a mistletoe ! 
^' Yes, ninety, sir,'' she says, " and my mother was a hundred, 
and my grandmother was a hundred and two." 

Herself ninety, her mother a hundred, her grandmother a 
hundred and two 1 What a queer calculation ! 

Ninety ! Very good, granny : you were born, then, in 1772. 

Your mother, we will say, was twenty-seven when you were 
born, and was born therefore in 1745. 

Your grandmother was thirty when her daughter was born, 
and was born therefore in 17 15. 

We will begin with the present granny first. My good old 
creature, you can't of course remember, but that little gentle- 
man for whom your mother was laundress in the Temple was 
the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith, author of a " History of Eng- 
land," the " Vicar of Wakefield," and many diverting pieces. 
You were brought almost an infant to his chambers in Brick 
Court, and he gave you some sugar-candy, for the doctor was 
always good to children. That gentleman who wellnigh smoth- 
ered you by sitting down on you as you lay in a chair asleep 
was the learned Mr. S. Johnson, whose history of " Rasselas " 
you have never read, my poor soul ; and whose tragedy of 
'' Irene " I don't believe any man in these kingdoms ever per- 
used. That tipsy Scotch gentleman who used to come to the 
chambers sometimes, and at whom everybody laughed, wrote a 
more amusing book than any of the scholars, your Mr. Burke 
and your Mr. Johnson, and your Dr. Goldsmith. Your father 
often took him home in a chair to his lodgings ; and has done 
as much for Parson Sterne in Bond Street, the famous wit. Of 
course, my good creature, you remember the Gordon Riots, 
and crying No Popery before Mr. Langdale's house, the Po- 



ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOU CI. 



235 



pish distiller's, and that bonny fire of my Lord Mansfield's books 
in Bloomsbury Square ? Bless us,, what a heap of illuminations 
you have seen ! For the glorious victory over the Americans 
at Breed's Hill- for the peace in 1814, and the beautiful 
Chinese bridge in St. James's Park ; for the coronation of his 
Alajesty, whom you recollect as Prince of Wales, Goody, don't 
you ? Yes ; and you went in a procession of laundresses to 
pay your respects to his good lady, the injured Queen of Eng- 
land, at Brandenburg House ; and you remember your mother 
told you how she was taken to see the Scotch lords executed 
at the Tower. And as for your grandmother, she was born 
five months after the battle of Malplaquet, she was ; where her 
poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for the Queen. 
With the help of a " Wade's Chronology," I can make out ever 
so queer a history for you, my poor old body, and a pedigree as 
authentic as many in the peerage-books. 

Peerage-books and pedigrees } What does she know about 
them ? Battles and victories, treasons, kings, and beheadings,' 
literary gentlemen, and the like, what have they ever been to 
her 1 Granny, did you ever hear of General Wolfe 1 Your 
mother may have seen him embark, and your father may have 
carried a musket under him. Your grandinother may have 
cried huzza for Marlborough ] but what is the Prince Duke to 
you, and did you ever so much as hear tell of his name ? How 
many hundred or thousand of years had that toad lived who 
was in the coal at the defunct Exhibition ?^-and yet he was not 
a bit better informed than toads seven or eight hundred years 
younger. 

" Don't talk to me your nonsense about Exhibitions, and 
Prince Dukes, and toads in coals, or coals in. toads, or what 
is it .'* " says granny. " I know there was a good Queen Char- 
lotte, for she left me snuff ; and it comforts me of a night when 
I lie awake." 

To me there is something ver\" touching in the notion of 
that little pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and gratefully 
inhaled by her in the darkness. Don't you remember what 
traditions there used to be of chests of plate, bulses of dia- 
monds, laces of inestimable value, sent out of the country 
privately by the old Queen, to enrich certain relations in 
M-ckl-n'b-rg Str-l-tz ? Not all the treasure went. No7i o?nnis 
moritur, A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy 
sometimes as she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Glid- 
ing noiselessly among the beds where lie the poor creatures 
huddled in their cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost 



236 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

with a snuff-box that does not creak. '' There, Goody, take of 
my rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not say, ' God 
bless you/ But you will think kindly of old Queen Charlotte, 
won't you ? Ah ! I had a many troubles, a many troubles. I 
was a prisoner almost so much as you are. I had to eat boiled 
mutton every day : ent7'e nous, I abominated it. But I never 
complained. I swallowed it. I made the best of a hard life. 
We have all our burdens to bear. But hark ! I hear the cock- 
crow, and snuff the morning air." And with this the royal 
ghost vanishes up the chimney — if there be a chimney in that 
dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her companions 
pass their nights — their dreary nights, their restless nights, their 
cold long nights, shared in what glum companionship, illumined 
by what a feeble taper ! 

" Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that 
your mother was seven-and-twenty years old when you were born, 
and that she married your esteemed father when she herself 
was twenty-five ? ' 1745, then, was the date of your dear mother's 
birth. ^ I dare say her father was absent in the Low Countries, 
with his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, under whom 
he had the honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engage- 
ment of Fontenoy — or if not there, he may have been at Pres- 
ton Pans, under General Sir John Cope, when the wild High- 
landers broke through all the laws of discipline and the Eng- 
lish lines ; and, being on the spot, did he see the famous ghost 
which didn't appear to Colonel Gardiner of the Dragoons .'* 
My good creature, is it possible you don't remember that Doc- 
tor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Oxford, as you justly 
say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, 
died in the year of your birth ? What a wretched memory you 
have ! What .^ haven't they a library, and the commonest books 
of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you 
dwell.?" 

"Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr. Swift, 
Atossa, and Mr. Pope, of Twitnam ! What is the gentleman 
talking about?" says old Goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a 
laugh like an old parrot — you know they live to be as old ^s 
Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is compar- 
atively young (ho! ho ! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to 
an immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at 
Sans Souci are there now, with great humps of blue mould on 
their old backs ; and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, 
if they chose to speak — but they are very silent, carps are — of 
their nature J>eu communicatives. Oh ! what has been thy long 



OiV SOME CARP A T CANS^SOUCL 237 

life, old Goody, but a dole of bread-and-water and a perch on a 
cage ; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond ? What 
are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know 
it is a grandchild of England who brings bread to feed them ? 

No ! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand 
years old and have nothing to tell but that one day is like 
another ; and the histor}^ of friend Goody Twoshoes has not 
much more variety than theirs. Hard labor, hard fare, hard bed, 
numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most days. That 
is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, 
I am not as one of these ? " If I were eighty, would I like to 
feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing ? to have to get up 
and make a bow when Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the 
common room ? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to 
give me her ideas of the next world t If I were eighty, I own 
I should not like to have to ^ sleep with another gentleman of 
my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old dreams, 
and snoring ; to march down my vale of years at W'ord of com- 
mand,^ accommodating my tottering old steps to those of the 
other prisoners in my dingy, hopeless old gang ; to hold out a 
trembling hand for a sickly pittance of gruel, and say, *' Thank 
you, ma'am," to Miss Prim, when she has done reading her 
sermon. John ! when Goody.Twoshoes comes next Friday, I 
desire she may not be disturbed by theological controversies. 
You have a very fair voice, and I heard you and the maids sing- 
ing a hymn very sweetly the other night, and was thankful that 
our humble household should be in such harmony. Poor old 
Twoshoes is so old and toothless and quaky, that she can't sing 
a bit ; but don't be giving yourself airs over her, because she 
can't sing and you can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen 
hearth. Set that old kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old 
stomach with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be 
kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave 
to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be 
many more Christmases for thee 1 Think of the ninety she has 
seen already ; the fourscore and ten cold, cheerless, nipping 
New Years ! 

If you were in her place, would you like to have a remem- 
brance of better early days, when you w^ere young, and happy, 
and loving, perhaps ; or would you prefer to have no past on 
which your mind could rest? About the year 1788, Goody, 
were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes bright, and did some 
young fellow in powder and a pigtail look in them t We may 
grow old, but to us some stories never are old. On a sudden 



238 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

they rise up, not dead, but living — not forgotten, but freshly re- 
membered. The eyes gleam on us as they used to do. The 
dear voice thrills in our hearts. The rapture of the meeting, 
the terrible, terrible parting, again and again the tragedy is 
acted over. Yesterday, in the street, I saw a pair of eyes so 
like two which used to brighten at my coming once, that the 
whole past came back as I walked lonely, in the rush of the 
Strand, and I was young again in the midst of joys and sorrows 
alike sweet and sad, alike sacred and fondly remembered. 

Jf I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my old 
school-girl 1 Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a 
source of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes. She sewed 
it away in her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a 
safe investment — (vestis — a vest — an investment, — pardon me, 
thou poor old thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry). And 
what do you think ? Another pensionnaire of the establishment 
cut the coin out of Goody's stays — an old woman who went upon 
tivo crutcJus ! Faugh, the old witch ! What ? Violence amongst 
these toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones ? Robbery 
amongst the penniless ? Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus's 
crumbs out of his lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she 
told the story ! To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live 
for hundreds of hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould 
on their back, I dare say the little Prince and Princess of Preus- 
sen-Britannien come sometimes with crumbs and cakes to feed 
the mouldy ones. Those eyes may have goggled from beneath 
the weeds at Napoleon's jack-boots : they have seen Frederick's 
lean shanks reflected in their pool ; and perhaps Monsieur de 
Voltaire has fed them — and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will 
fight, push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their 
tranquillity when the ignoble struggle is over. Sans souci, 
indeed ! It is mighty well writing " Sans souci'' over the gate ; 
but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped ? She 
perches on the shoulders of the sentr}^ in the sentry-box : she 
whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair : she glides up 
the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their 
bed-royal : this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor 
old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, *' Will the 
gentleman and those ladies ask me again ? No, no ; they will 
forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody 1 For shame of yourself ! 
Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. 
W^iat ? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninety 
tim.es? For fourscore and ten years has it been thy lot to 
totter on this earth, hungry and obscure ? Peace and good' 



A UTO UR DE MON CHAPE A U. 239 

Will to thee, let ns say at this Christmas season. Come, drink, 
eat, rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old pilgrim ! And of 
the bread which God's bounty gives us, I pray, brother reader, 
we may not forget to set aside a part for those noble and silent 
poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the means of 
labor. Enough ! As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow a 
note shall be sent to Saint Lazarus Union House, in which Mr. 
Roundabout requests the honor of Mrs. Twoshoes's company 
on Friday, 26th December. 



AUTOUR DE MON CHAFE A U. 

Never have I seen a more noble tragic face. In the centre 
of the forehead there was a great furrow of care, towards which 
the brows rose piteously. What a deep solemn grief in the 
eyes ! They looked blankly at the object before them, but 
through it, as it were, and into the grief beyond. In moments 
of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent object so 1 It 
mingles dumbly with your grief, and remains afterwards con- 
nected with it in your mind. It may be some indifferent thing 
— a book which you were reading at the time when you received 
her farewell letter (how well you remember the paragraph after- 
wards — the shape of the words, and their position on the page) ; 
the words you were writing when your mother came in, and 
said it was all over — she was married — Emily married — to 
that insignificant little rival at whom you have laughed a 
hundred times in her company. Well, well ; my friend and 
reader, whoe'er you be — old man or young, wife or maiden — 
you have had your grief-pang. Boy, you have lain awake the 
first night at school, and thought of home. Worse still, man, 
you have parted from the dear ones with bursting heart : and, 
lonely boy, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade gave you ; 
and, lonely man, just torn from your children — their little tokens 
of affection yet in your pocket — pacing the deck at evening in 
the midst of the roaring ocean, you can remember how you were 
told that supper w^as ready, and how^ you went down to the cabin 
and had brandy-and-water and biscuit. You remember the taste 
of them. Yes; forever. You took them whilst you and your 
Grief were sitting together, and your Grief clutched you round 
the soul. Serpent, how you have writhed round me, and bitten 



24^ 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



me ! Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come in the night season, 
and I feel you gnawing, gnawing i * * =^ =* I tell you that 
man's face was like Laocoon's (which, by the way, I always 
think overrated. The real head is at Brussels, at the Duke 
Daremberg's, not at Rome). 

That man ! What man ? That man of whom I said that 
his magnificent countenance exhibited the noblest tragic w^oe. 
He was not cf European blood. He was handsome, but not of 
European beauty. His face white — not of a Northern white- 
ness ; his eyes protruding somewhat, and rolling in their grief. 
Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the 
eagle's. His lips w^ere full. The beard, curling round them, 
was unkempt and tawny. The locks w^ere of a deep, deep cop- 
pery red. The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed to the 
rough grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed unused to 
_the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from the Wilderness, 
and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered sandal, 
and the hardy foot it covered. 

And his grief — whence came his sorrow ? I will tell you. 
He bore it in his hand. He had evidently just concluded the 
compact by which it became his. His business was that of a 
purchaser of domestic raiment. At early dawn — nay, at what 
hour when the City is alive — do w^e not all hear the nasal cry 
of " Clo .'' " In Paris, Habits Galons^ Marchand d' habits^ is 
the twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes 
his presence known. It was -in Paris I saw this man. Where 
else have I not seen him ? In the Roman Ghetto — at the Gate 
of David, in his fathers' once imperial city. The man I mean 
was an itinerant vendor and purchaser of wardrobes — what you 
call an ^ "^ ^ Enough ! You know his name. 

On his left shoulder hung his bag ; and he held in that 
hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, and 
which was the cause of the grief which smote his noble features. 
Of course I cannot particularize the sum, but he had given too 
much for that' hat. He felt he might have got the thing for 
less money. It w^as not ^he amount, I am sure j it was the 
principle involved. He had given fourpence (let us say) for . 
that which threepence would have purchased. He had been 
done : and a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose 
energ}^, acuteness, experience, point of honor, should have 
made him the victor in any mercantile duel in which he should^ 
engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very likely 
sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it. I 
can understand his grief. Do I seem to be speaking of it in a 



AUTOUR DE MON CHAPE AU. 241 

disrespectful or flippant way ? Then you mistake me. He 
had been outwitted. He had desired, coaxed, schemed, hag- 
gled, got what he wanted, and now found he had paid too 
much for his bargain. You don't suppose I would ask you to 
laugh at that man's grief ? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are 
disposed to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy 
are trickling down this nose of mine. What do you mean by 
laughing ? If you saw a wounded soldier on the field of bat- 
tle, would you laugh ? If you saw a ewe robbed of her lamb, 
would you laugh, you brute } It is you who are the cynic, and 
have no feeling : and you sneer because that grief is unintel- 
ligible to 3'ou which touches my finer sensibility. The Old- 
Clothes'-Man had been defeated in one of the daily battles of 
his most interesting, checkered, adventurous life. 

Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life must 
be ? The pursuit and the conquest of twopence must be the 
most eager and fascinating of occupations. We might all 
engage in that business if we would. Do not whist-players, 
for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over six- 
penny pomts 1 They bring study, natural genius, long fore 
thought, memory, and careful historical experience to bear 
upon their favorite labor. Don't tell me that it is the six- 
penny points, and ^xq shillings the rub, which keeps them 
for hours over their painted pasteboard. It is the desire to 
conquer. Hours pass by. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, 
rises unheeded ; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the 
"Portland," or the ''Union," while waning candles splutter in 
the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. 
Sol rises. Jones has lost four pounds : Brown has won two ; 
Robinson lurks away to his family house and (mayhap, in- 
dignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, have 
passed away whilst they have been waging this sixpenny bat- 
tle. What is the loss of four pounds to Jones, the gain of 
two to Brown ? B. is, perhaps, so rich that two pounds more 
or less are as naught to him ; J. is so hopelessly involved 
that to win four pounds cannot benefit his creditors, or alter 
his condition ; but they play for that stake : they put forward 
their best energies : they ruff, finesse (what are the technical 
words, and how do I know?). It is but a sixpenny game if 
you like ; but they want to win it. So as regards my friend 
yonder with the hat. He stakes his money : he wishes to 
win the game, not the hat merely. I am not prepared to say 
that he is not inspired by a noble ambition. Cassar wished 
to be first in a village. If first of a hundred vokels, why not 

16 ' - 



to 



242 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

first of two ? And my friend the old-clothes'-man wishes to 
win his game, as well as to turn his little sixpence. 

Suppose in the game of life — and it is but a twopenny 
game after all — ^you are equally eager of winning. Shall you 
be ashamed of your ambition, or glory in it t There are 
games, too, which are becoming to particular periods of life. 
I remember in the days of our youth, when my friend Arthur 
Bowler was an eminent cricketer. Slim, swift, strong, well- 
built, he presented a goodly appearance on the ground in his 
flannel uniform. Militasti non sine gloria^ Bowler my boy ! 
Hush ! We tell no tales. Mum is the word. Yonder comes 
Charley his son. Now Charles his son has taken the field, 
and is famous among the eleven of his school. Bowler senior, 
with his capacious waistcoat, &c., waddling after a ball, would 
present an absurd object, whereas it does the eyes good to see 
Bowler junior scouring the plain — a young exemplar of joyful 
health, vigor, activity. The old boy wisely contents himself 
with amusements more becoming his age and waist ; takes his 
sober ride ; visits his farm soberly — busies himself about his 
pigs, his ploughing, his peaches, or what not ? Very small 
routinier amusements interest him ; and (thank goodness !) 
nature provides very kindly for kindly-disposed fogies. We 
relish those things which we scorned in our lusty youth. I see 
the young folks of an evening kindling and glowing over their 
delicious novels. I look up and watch the eager eye flashing 
down the page, being, for my part, perfectly contented with my 
twaddling old volume of '' Howel's Letters," or the Gentleman's 
Magazine, I am actually arrived at such a calm frame of mind 
that I like batter-pudding. I never should have believed it 
possible ; but it is so. Yet a little while, and I may relish 
water-gruel. It will be the age oi mon lait de poule et tnon bon- 
net de nuit. And then — the cotton extinguisher is pulled over 
the old noddle, and the little flame of life is popped out. 

Don't you know elderly people who make learned notes in 
Army Lists, Peerages, and the like ? This is the batter-pud- 
ding, water-gruel of old age. The worn-out digestion does not 
care for stronger food. Formerly it could swallow twelve- 
hours' tough reading, and digest an encyclopaedia. 

If I had children to educate, I would, at ten or twelve 
years of age, have a professor, or professoress, of whist for 
them, and cause them to be well grounded in that great and 
useful game. You cannot learn it well when you are old, any 
more than you can learn dancing or billiards. In our house at 
homf? we yqungsters did not play whist because we were dear 



A U TOUR DE MGN CHAPEAU, 243 

obedient children, and the elders said playing at cards was *' a 
waste of time." A waste of time, my good people ! Alloiis / 
What do elderly home-keeping people do of a night after din- 
ner ? Darby gets his newspaper ; my dear Joan her Afissiona?y 
Magazi?ie or her volume of Cmnming's Sermons — and don't 
you know what ensues ? Over the arm of Darby's arm-chair 
the paper flutters to the ground unheeded, and he performs 
the trumpet obbligato que vous savez on his old nose. My 
dear old Joan's head nods over her sermon (awakening though 
the doctrine may^ be). Ding, ding, ding : can that be ten 
o'clock 1 It is time to send the servants to bed, my dear — and 
to bed master and mistress go too. But they have not wasted 
their time playing at cards. Oh, no ! I belong to a Club 
where there is whist of a night ; and not a little amusing is it 
to hear Brown speak of Thompson's play, and vice versa. But 
there is one man — Greatorex let us call him — who is the ac- 
knowledged Captain and primus of all the whist-players. We 
all secretly admire him. I, for my part, watch him in private 
life, hearken to what he -says, note what he orders for dinner, 
and have that feeling of awe for him that I used to have as a 
boy for the cock of the school. Not play at whist } " Quelle 
triste vieillesse vous votis preparez I " w^ere the words of the great 
and good Bishop of Autun. I can't. It is too late now. Too 
late ! too late ! Ah ! humiliating confession ! That joy might 
have been clutched, but the life-stream has swept us by it — the 
swift life-stream rushing to the nearing sea. Too late ! too 
late ! Twentystone my boy ! When you read in the papers 
** Valse a deux temps," and all the fashionable dances taught 
to adults by " Miss Lightfoots," don't you feel that you w^ould 
like to go in and learn } Ah, it is too late ! 'You have passed 
the choreas, Master Twentystone, and the young people are 
dancing wdthout you. 

I don't believe much of what my Lord Byron the poet says ; 
but when he wrote, '* So, for a good old gentlemanly vice, I 
think I shall put up with avarice," I think his lordship meant 
what he wTote, and if he practised what he preached, shall not 
quarrel wdth him. As an occupation in declining years, I 
declare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. 
It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be 
played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you 
must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The 
fare to my house, say, is two shillings. The cabman will nat- 
urally w^ant half a crown. I pull out my book. I show him the 
distance is exactly three miles and fifteen hundred and ninety 



244 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



yards. I offer him my card — my winning card. As he retires 
with the two shilUngs, blaspheming inwardly, every curse is a 
compUment to my skill. I have played him and beat him ; and 
a sixpence is my spoil and just reward. This is a game, by the 
way, which women play far more cleverly than we do. But 
what an interest it imparts to life ! During the whole drive 
home I know I shall have my game at the journey's end ; am 
sure of my hand, and shall beat my adversary. Or I can play 
in another way. I won't have a cab at all, I will wait for the 
omnibus : I will be one of the damp fourteen in that steaming 
vehicle. I will wait about in the rain for an hour, and 'bus 
after 'bus shall pass, but I will not be beat. I will have a 
place, and get it at length, wdth my boots wet through, and an 
umbrella dripping between my legs. I have a ^rheumatism, 
a cold, a sore throat, a sulky evening, — a doctor's bill to- 
morrow perhaps ? Yes, but I have won my game, and am 
gainer of a shilling on this rubber. 

If you play this game all through life it is wonderful what 
daily interest it has, and amusing occupation. For instance, 
my wife goes to sleep after dinner over her volume of sermons. 
As soon as the dear soul is sound asleep, I advance softly and 
puii out her candle. Her pure dreams will be all the happier 
without that light ; and, say she sleeps an hour, there is a penny 
gained. 

As for clothes, parbkn ! there is not much money to be 
saved in clothes, for the fact is, as a man advances in life — as 
he becomes an Ancient Briton (mark the pleasantry) — he goes 
without clothes. When my tailor proposes something in the 
way of a change of raiment, I laugh in his face. My blue coat 
and brass buttons will last these ten years. It is seedy ? What 
then } I don't want to charm anybody in particular. You say 
that my clothes are shabby 1 What do I care .^ W^hen I wished 
to look well in somebody's eyes, the matter may have been 
different. But now, when I receive my bill of lo/. (let us say) 
at the year's end, and contrast it with old tailor's reckonings, I 
feel that I have played the game with master tailor, and beat 
him ; and my old clothes are a token of the victory. 

I do not like to give servants board-wages, though they are 
cheaper than household bills : but I know they save out of 
board \vages, and so beat me. This shows that it is not the 
money but the game which interests me. So about wine. I 
have it good and dear. I will trouble you to tell me where to 
get it good and cheap. You may as well give me the address 
of a shop where I can buy meat for fourpence a pound, or 



A U TOUR BE MON CIIAPEAU, 



H5 



sovereigns for fifteen shillings apiece. At the game of auctions, 
docks, shy wine-merchants, depend on it there is no winning \ 
and I would as soon think of buying jewelr}' at an auction in 
Fleet Street as of purchasing wine from one of your dreadful 
needy wine-agents such as infest every man's door. Grudge 
myself good wine ? As soon grudge my horse corn. Mercil 
that would be a very losing game indeed, and your humble 
servant has no relish for such. 

But in the very pursuit of saving there must be a hundred 
harmless delights and pleasures which we who are careless 
necessarily forego. What do you know about the natural his- 
tory of your household 1 Upon your honor and conscience, da 
you know the price of a pound of butter? Can you say what 
sugar costs, and how much your family consumes and ought to 
consume ? How much lard do you use in your house ? As I 
think on these subjects I own I hang down the head of shame. 
I suppose for a moment that you, who are reading this, are a 
middle-aged gentleman, and paterfamilias. Can you answer 
the above questions 1 You know, sir, you cannot. Now turn 
round, lay down the book, and suddenly ask Mrs. Jones and 
your daughters if t/iey can answer ? They cannot. They look 
dt one another. . They pretend they can answer. They can tell 
you the plot aiid principal characters of the last novel. Some 
of them know something about histor}', geology, and so forth. 
But of the natural history of home — Nichts, and for shame on 
you all ! Homiis soyez ! For shame on you ? for shame on us ! 

In the early morning I hear a sort of call oryW-^/ under my 
window : and know 'tis the matutinal milkman leaving his can 
at my gate. O household gods ! have I lived all these years 
and don't know the price or the quantity of the milk Vvhich is 
delivered in that can ? Why don't I know ? As I live, if I live 
till to morrow morning, as soon as I hear the call of Lactantius, 
I will dash out upon him. How many cows ? - How much milk, 
on an average, all the year round t What rent ? What cost of 
food and dairy servants ? What loss of animals, and average 
cost of purchase ? If I interested myself properly about my 
pint (or hogshead, whatever it be) of milk, all this knowledge 
would ensue ; all this additional interest in life. What is this 
talk of my friend, Mr. Lewes, about objects at the sea-side, and 
so forth ? ^ Objects at the sea-side ? Objects at the area-bell :■ 
objects before my r.o^.e : objects which the butcher brings me 
in his tray : which the cook dresses and puts down before me, 
Und over which I say grace ! My daily life is surrounded with 

* •'' Sea-side Studies." By G. H, Lewes. 



246 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

objects which ought to interest me. The pudding I eat (or 
refuse, that is neither here nor there ; and, between ourselves, 
what I have said about batter-pudding may be taken cum grano 
— we^are not come to that yet, except for the sake of argument 
or illustration) — the pudding, I say, on my plate, the eggs that 
made it, the fire that cooked it, the table-cloth on which it is 
laid, and so forth — are each and all of these objects a knowl- 
edge of which I may acquire — a knowledge of the cost and 
production of which I might advantageously learn ? To the 
man who does know these things, I say the interest of life is 
prodigiously increased. The milkman becomes a study to him ; 
the baker a being he curiously and tenderly examines. Go, 
Lewes, and clap a hideous sea anemone into a glass : I will put 
a cabman under mine, and make a vivisection of a butcher. 
O Lares, Penates, and gentle household gods, teach me to 
sympathize with all that comes within my doors 1 Give me an 
interest in the butcher's book. Let me look forward to the 
ensuing number of the grocer's account with eagerness. It 
seems ungrateful to my kitchen chimney not to know the cost 
of sweeping it ; and I trust that many a man who reads this, 
and muses on it, will feel, like the writer, ashamed of himself, 
and hang down his head humbly. 

Now, if to this household game you could add a^ little money 
interest, the amusement W'Ould be increased far beyond the 
mere money value, as a game at cards for sixjDcnce is better 
than a rubber for nothing. If you can interest yourself about 
sixpence, all life is invested with a new excitement. From 
sunrise to sleeping you can always be playing that game — with 
butcher, baker, coal-merchant, cabman, omnibus man — nay, 
diamond-merchant and stockbroker. You can bargain for a 
guinea over the price of a diamond necklace, or for a sixteenth 
per cent, in a transaction at the Stock Exchange. We all know 
men who have this faculty who are not ungenerous with their 
money. They give it on great occasions. They are more able 
to help than you and I who spend ours, and say to poor Prod- 
igal who comes to us out at elbow, " My dear fellow, I should 
have been delighted : but I have already anticipated my quarter, 
and am going to ask Screwby if he can do anything for me.*' 

In this delightful, w^iolesome, ever-novel twopenny game, 
there is a danger of excess, as there is in every other pastime 
or occupation of life. If you grow too eager for your two- 
pence, the acquisition or the loss of it may affect your peace of 
mind, and peace of mind is better than any amount of two- 
pences. My fri':nd, the old-clothes'-man, whose agonies over 



AUTOUR DE MON CRAPE A (7, 



247 



the hat have led to this rambling disquisition, has, I very much 
fear, by a too eager pursuit of small profits, disturbed the 
equanimity of a mind that ought to be easy and happy. " Had 
I stood out,'' he thinks, "I might have had the hat for three- 
pence," and he doubts whether, having given fourpence for it, 
he will ever get back his money. Aly good Shadrach, if you 
go through life passionately deploring the irrevocable, and 
allow yesterday's transactions to embitter the cheerfulness of 
to-day and to-morrow — as lief walk down to the Seine, souse 
in, hats, body, clothes-bag and all, and put an end to your sor- 
row and sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote 
his pretty apologue of the Whistle have we not all made bar- 
gains of which we repented, and coveted and acquired objects 
for which we have paid too dearly ? Who has not purchased 
his hat in some market or other ? There is General M'Clellan's 
cocked-hat for example :'l dare say he was eager enough to 
wear it, and he has learned that it is by no means cheerful 
wear. There were the military beavers of Messeigneurs of 
Orleans : ^ they wore them gallantly in the face of battle ; but 
I suspect they were glad enough to pitch them into the James 
River and come home in mufti. Ah, mes amis f a cJiacun son 
schakot ! I was logking at a bishop the other day, and thinking, 
'* My right reverend lord, that broad brim and rosette must 
bind your great broad forehead very tightly, and give you many 
a headache. A good easy wideawake were better for you, and 
I would like to see that honest face v;ith a cutty-pipe in the 
middle of it." There is my Lord Mayor. My once dear lord, 
my kind friend, when your two years' reign was over, did not 
you jump for joy and fling your chapeau-bras out of window : 
and hasn't that hat cost you a pretty bit of money ? There, in 
a splendid travelling chariot, in the sweetest bonnet, all trimmed 
with orange blossoms and Chantilly lace, sits my Lady Rosa, 
with old Lord Snowdon by her side. Ah, Rosa ! what a price 
have yo\i paid for that hat which you wear ; and is your lady- 
ship's coronet not purchased too dear? Enough of hats. Sir, 
or Madam, I take off mine, and salute you with profound 
respect. 

*■ Two cadets of the House of Orleans who served as Volunteers under General 
M'Clellan in his campaign against Richmond. 



248 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

ON ALEXANDRINES?" 

A LETTER TO SOME COUNTRY COUSINS. 

Dear Cousins, — Be pleased to receive herewith a packet 
of Mayall's photographs, and copies of Illustrated News, Illus- 
trated Times, Lo7idon Review, Queen, and Observer, each con- 
taining an account of the notable festivities of the past week. 
If, besides these remembrances of home, you have a mind to 
read a letter from an old friend, behold here it is. When I 
was at school, having left my parents in India, a good-natured 
captain or colonel would come sometimes and see us Indian 
boys, and talk to us about papa and mamma, and give us coins 
of the realm, and wTite to our parents, and say, " I drove over 
yesterday and saw Tommy at Dr. Birch's. I took him to the 
^ George,' and gave him a dinner. His appetite is fine. He 
states that he is reading ' Cornelius Nepos,' with w^hich he is 
much interested. His masters report," &c. And though Dr. " 
Birch wrote by the same mail a longer, fuller, and official state- 
ment, I have no doubt the distant parents preferred the friend's 
letter, w4th its artless, possibly ungrammatical, account of their 
little darling. 

I have seen the young heir of Britain. These eyes have 
beheld him and his bride, on Saturday in Pall Mall, and on 
Tuesday in the nave of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, when 
the young Princess Alexandra of Denmark passed by with her 
blooming procession of bridesmaids ; and half an hour later,^ 
when the Princess of Wales came forth from the chapel, her 
husband by her side robed in the purple mantle of the famous 
Order which his forefather established here five hundred years 
ago. We were to see her yet once again, when her open car- 
riage passed out of the Castle gate to the station of the near 
railway which was to convey her to Southampton. 

Since w^omankind existed, has any woman ever had such a 
greeting ? At ten hours' distance, there is a city far more magni- 
ficent than ours. With every respect for Kensington turnpike, I 
own that the Arc de TEtoile at Paris is a much finer entrance to 
an imperial capital. In our black, orderless, zigzag streeH^, we 
can shov/ nothing to compare with the magnificent array of the 

*This paner, it is almost needless to sav. was written just after the marriage tf the 
Prince and Princess of Wales in Marcli, 1S63. 



ON ALEXANDRINES, 



249 



Rue de Rivoli, that enormous regiment of stone stretching for 
five miles and presenting arms before the Tuileries. Think of 
the late Fleet Prison and Waithman's Obelisk, and of the Place 
de la Concorde and the Luxor Stone! *' The finest site in 
Europe/' as Trafalgar Square has been called by some obstinate 
British optimist, is disfigured by trophies, fountains, columns, and 
statues so puerile, disorderly, and hideous that a lover of the arts 
must hang the head of shame as he passes to see our deai old 
queen city arraying herself so absurdly ; but when all is said and 
done, we can show one or two of the greatest sights in the world. 
I doubt if any Roman festival was as vast or striking as the 
Derby day, or if any Imperial triumph could sho\\\such a pro- 
digious muster of faithful people as our young Princess saw on 
Saturday, when the nation turned out to greet her. The cal- 
culators are squabbling about the numbers of hundreds of thou- 
sands, of millions, who came forth to see her and bid her wel- 
come. Imagine beacons flaming, rockets blazing, yards 
manned, ships and forts saluting with their thunder, every 
steamer and vessel, every town and village from Ramsgate to 
Gravesend, swarming with happy gratulation ; young girls with 
flowers, scattering roses before her ; staid citizens and aldermen 
pushing and squeezing and panting to make the speech, and 
bow the knee, and bid her welcome 1 Who is this who is hon- 
ored with such a prodigious triumph, and received with a wel- 
come so astonishing ? A year ago we had never heard of her. 
I think about her pedigree and family not a few of us are in 
the dark still, and I own, for my part, to be much puzzled by 
the allusions of newspaper genealogists and- bards and skalds 
to Vikings, Berserkers, and so forth. But it would be interest- 
ing to know how many hundreds of thousands of photographs of 
the fair bright face have by this time made it beloved and familiar 
in British homes. Think of all the quiet countr}' nooks from 
Land's End to Caithness, where kind eyes have glanced at it. 
The farmer brings it home from market ; the curate from his 
visit to the Cathedral town ; the rustic folk peer at it in the 
little village shop-window ; the squire's children gaze on it round 
the drawing-room table : every eye that beholds it looks ten- 
derly on its bright beauty and sweet artless grace, and young 
and old pray God bless her. We have an elderly friend (a 
certain Goody Tv/oshoes) who, inhabits, with many other old 
ladies, the Union House of the Parish of St. Lazarus in Sohc. 
One of your cousins from this house went to see her, and found 
Goody and her companion crones all in a flutter of excitement 
about the marriage. The whitewashed walls of their bleak 



250 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 



dormitory were ornamented with prints out of the illustrated 
journals, and hung with festoons and true-lovers' knots of tape 
and colored paper ; and the old bodies had had a good dinner, 
and the old tongues were chirping and clacking away, all eager, 
interested, sympathizing ; and one very elderly and rheumatic 
Goody, who is obliged to keep her bed, (and has, I trust, an 
exaggerated idea of the cares attending on royalty,) said, "- Pore 
thing, pore thing ! I pity her." Yes, even in that dim place 
there was a little brightness and a quavering huzza, a contribu- 
tion of a mite subscribed by those dozen poor old widows to 
the treasure of loyalty with which the nation endows the 
Prince's bride. 

Three hundred years ago, when our dread Sovereign Lady 
Elizabeth came to take possession of her realm and capital 
city, Holingshed, if you please (whose pleasing history of course 
you carry about with you,) relates in his fourth volume folio, 
that — "At hir entring the citie, she was of the people received 
maruellous intierlie, as appeared by the assemblies, praiers, 
welcommings, cries, and all other signes which argued a woonder- 
full earnest loue : " and at various halting-places on the royal 
progress children habited like angels appeared out of allegoric 
edifices and spoke verses to her — 

" Welcome, O Queen, as much as heart can think, 

Welcome again, as much as tongue can tell, 
Welcome to joyous tongues and hearts that will not shrink. 

God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well ! " 

Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had her Alex- 
andrines, and many minstrels have gone before her singing her 
praises. Mr. Tupper, who begins in very great force and 
strength, and who proposes to give her no less than eight hun- 
dred thousand welcomes in the first twenty lines of his ode, is 
not satisfied with this most liberal amount of acclamation, but 
proposes at the end of his poem a still more magnificent sub- 
scription. Thus we begin, " A hundred thousand welcomes, a 
hundred thousand welcomes." (In my copy the figures are in 
the well-known Arabic numerals, but let us have the numbers 
literally accurate :) — 



** A hundred thousand welcomes ! 
A hundred thousand welcomes ! 

And a hundred thousand more ! 
O happy heart of England, 
Shout aloud and sing, land, 
As no land sang before ; 
And let tlie pseans soar 
And ring from shore to shore, 
A hundred thousand welcomes. 
And a hundred thousand more ; 



And let tne cannons roar 
The joy-stunned city o'er. 
And let the steeples chime it 
A hundred thousand welcomes 
And a hundred thousand more ; 
And let the people rhyme it 
From neighbor's door to door, 
From every man's heart's core, 
A hundred thousand welcomes 
And a hundred thousand more." 



ON ALEXANDRINES, 



251 



This contribution, in twenty not long lines, of 900,000 (say 
nine hundred thousand) welcomes is handsome indeed ; and 
shows that when our bard is inclined to be liberal, he does not 
look to the cost. But what is a sum of 900,000 to his further 
proposal ? — 



'* O let all these declare it, 
Let miles of shouting swear it, 

In all the years of yore, 

Unparalleled before I 
And thou, most welcome Wand'rer 

Across the Northern Water, 
Our England's Alexandra, 

Our dear adopted daughter — 



Lay to thine heart, conned o'er and o'er 
In future years remembered well, 
The magic fe:vor of this spell 

That siiakes the ;ar.d from shore to shore, 

And makes all hearts and eyes brim o'er; 
Our hundred thousand welcomes, 
Our fifty million welcomes, 

And a hundred m.illion more ! " 



Here we have, besides the most liberal previous subscrip- 
tion, a further call on the public for no less than one hundred 
and fifty million one hundred thousand welcomes for her Royal 
Highness, How much is this per head for all of us in the 
three kingdoms ? Not above five welcomes apiece, and I am 
sure many of us have given more than five hurrahs to the fair 
young Princess. 

Each man sings according to his voice, and gives in propor- 
tion to his means. The guns at Sheerness " from their ada- 
mantine lips " (which had spoken in quarrelsome old times a 
very different language), roared a hundred thundering welcomes 
to the fair Dane. The maidens of England strewed roses be- 
fore her feet at Gravesend when she landed. Mr. Tupper, with 
the million and odd welcomes, may be compared to the thun- 
dering fleet ; Mr. Chorley's song, to the flowerets scattered on 
her Royal Highness's happy and carpeted path : — 

" Blessings on that fair face ! 

Safe on the shore 
Of her home-dwelling place, 

Stranger no more, 
Love, from her household shrine, 

Keep sorrow far ! 
May for her hawthorn twine, 

June bring sweet eglantine, 
Autumn, the golden vine, 

Dear Northern Star I " 

Hawthorn for May, eglantine for June, and in autumn a little 
tass of the golden vine for our Northern Star. I am sure no 
one will grudge the Princess these simple enjoyments, and of 
the produce of the last-named pleasing plant, I wonder how 
many bumpers were drunk ^o her health on the happy day of 
her bridal .^ As for the Laureate's verses, I w^ould respectfully 
likeh his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on " a 
windy headland." His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, 
which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it : and four 



252 ' ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

times in the midnight he shouts mightily, *' Alexandra ! " and 
the Pontic pine is whirled into the ocean and Enceladus goes. 
home. 

Whose muse, who,se cornemuse, sounds with such plaintive 
sweetness from Arthur's Seat, while Edinburgh and Mussel- 
burgh lie rapt in delight, and the mermaids come flapping up to 
Leith shore to hear the exquisite music ? Sweeter piper Edina 
knows not than Aytoun, the Bard of the Cavaliers, who has 
given in his frank adhesion to the reigning dynasty. When a 
most beautiful, celebrated and unfortunate princess whose 
memory the Professor loves — when Mary, wife of Francis the 
Second, King of France, and by her own right proclaimed 
Queen of Scotland and England (poor soul !), entered Paris 
with her young bridegroom, good Peter Ronsard wrote of her — 

' '* Toi qui as veu rexcellence de celle 
Qui rend le ciel de I'Kscosse envieux, 
Dy hardiment, contentez vous rnes yeux, 
Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle."* 

^^ Vous ne verrez ja7nais chose plus helled Here is an Alex- 
andrine written three hundred years ago, as simple as bo?ijour. 
Professor Aytoun is more ornate. After elegantly compliment- 
ing the spring, and a description of her Royal Highness's well- 
known ancestors the " Berserkers,'' he bursts fortlt=^ 

** The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride I 
O loveliest Rose ! our paragon and pride- 
Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear— 
What homage shall we pay 
To one who has no peer ? 
What can the bard or wildered minstrel say 
More than the peasant who oa bended knee 
Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee ? 
Words are not fair, if that they would express 
Is fairer still ; so lovers in dismay 
Stand all abashed before that loveliness 
They worship most, but find no words to pray. 
Too sweet for incense ! {bravo I) Take our loves instead — 
Most freely, truly, and devoutly given ; 
Our prayer for blessings on that gentle head, 
For earthly happiness and rest in Heaven ! 
May never sorrow dim those dove-like eyes. 
But peace as pure as reigned in Paradise, 
Calm and untainted on creation's eve, 
Attend thee still I -May holy angels," &c. 

This is all very well, my dear cotrntry cousins. But will you 
say " Amen " to this prayer ? I won't. Assuredly our fair 
Princess will shed many tears out of the ^' dove-like eyes " or 
the heart will be little worth. Is she to know no parting, no 
care, no anxious longing, v.o tender watches by the sick, to de- 

* Quoted in Mignet's " Life of Mary." 



ON ALEXANDRINES. 253 

plore no friends and kindred, and feel no grief ? Heaven for- 
bid ! When a bard or wildered minstrel writes so, best accept 
his own confession that he is losing his head. On the day of 
her entrance into London who looked more bright and happy 
than the Princess ? On the day of the marriage, the fair face 
wore its marks of care already, and looked out quite grave, and 
frightened almost, under the wreaths and lace and orange- 
flowers. Would you have had her feel no tremor ? A maiden 
on the bridegroom's threshold, a Princess led up to the steps of 
a throne ? I think her pallor and doubt became her as well as 
her smiles. That, I can tell you, was oicr vote who sat in X 
compartment, let us say, in the nave of St. George's Chapel at 
Windsor, and saw a part of one of the brightest ceremonies ever 
performed there. 

My dear cousin Mary, you have an account of the dresses ; 
and I promise you there were princesses besides the bride v/hom 
it did the eyes good to behold. Around the bride sailed a bevy 
of young creatures so fair, white, and graceful that I thought of 
those fairy-tale beauties who are sometimes princesses, and 
sometimes white swans. The Royal Princesses and the Royal 
Knights of the Garter swept by in prodigious robes and trains 
of purple velvet, thirty shillings a yard, my dear, not of course 
including the lining, which, I have no doubt, was of the richest 
satin, or that costly " miniver " which we used to read about in 
poor Jerrold's writings. The young princes were habited in 
kilts ; and by the side of the Princess Royal trotted such a little 
wee solemn Highlander ! He is the young heir and chief of 
the famous clan of Brandenburg. His eyrie is amongst the 
Eagles, and I pray no harm may befall the dear little chieftain. 

The heralds in their tabards were marvellous to behold, and 
a nod from Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratification. I 
tried to catch Garter's eye, but either I couldn't or he wouldn't. 
In his robes, he is like one of the Three Kings in old missal 
illuminations. Goldstick in waiting is even more splendid. 
With his gold rod and robes and trappings of many colors, he 
looks like a royal enchanter, and as if he had raised up all this 
scene of glamor by a wave of his glittering wand. The silver 
trumpeters wear such quaint caps, as those I have humbly tried 
to depict on the playful heads of children. Behind the trump- 
eters came a drum-bearer, on whose back a gold-laced drummer 
drubbed his march. 

When the silver clarions had blown, and under a clear 
chorus of white-robed children chanting round the organ, the 
noble procession passed into the chapel, and was hidden from 



254 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

our sight for a while, there was silence^ or from the inner chapel 
ever so faint a hum. Then hymns arose, and in the hill we 
knew that prayers were being said, and the sacred rite per- 
formed which joined Albert Edward to Alexandra his wife. I 
am sure hearty prayers were offered outside the gate as well as 
within for that princely young pair, and for their Mother and 
Queen. The peace, the freedom, the happiness, the order which 
her rule guarantees, are part of my birthright as an Englishman, 
and I bless God for my share. Where else shall I find such 
liberty of action, thought, speech, or laws which protect me so 
well ? Eler part of her compact with her people, what sovereign 
ever better performed ? If ours sits apart from the festivities of 
the day, it is because she suffers from a grief so recent that the 
loyal heart cannot master it as yet, and remains t7'eii und fest to 
a beloved memory. A part of the music which celebrates the 
day's service was composed by the husband v/ho is gone to the 
place where the just and pure of life meet the reward promised 
by the Father of all of us to good and faithful servants who 
have done well here below. As this one gives in his account, 
surely we may remember how the Prince was the friend of all 
peaceful arts and learning ; how he was true and fast always to 
duty, home, honor ; how, through a life of complicated trials, he 
was sagacious, righteous, active and self-denying. And as we 
trace in the young faces of his many children the father's 
features and likeness, what Englishman will not pray that they 
may have inherited also some of the great qualities which won 
for the Prince Consort the love and respect of our country t 

The papers tell us how, on the night of the marriage of the 
Prince of Wales, all over England and Scotland illuminations 
were made, the poor and children were feasted, and in village 
and city thousands of kindly schemes were devised to mark thp 
national happiness and sympathy. " The bonfire on Copt- 
point at Folkestone was seen in France," the Telegraph says, 
'' more clearly than even the French marine lights could be seen 
at Folkestone." Long may the fire continue to burn ! There 
are European coasts (and inland places) where the liberty light 
has been extinguished, or is so low that you can't see to read 
by it — there are great Atlantic shores where it flickers and 
smokes very gloomily. Let us be thankful to the honest 
guardians of ours, and for the kind sky under which it burns 
bright and steady. 



ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 25*5 



ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 

Before me lies a coin bearing the image and superscription 
of King George IV., and of the nominal value of two-and- 
sLxpence. But an official friend at a neighboring turnpike says 
the piece is hopelessly bad ; and a chemist tested it, returning 
a like unfavorable opinion. A cabman, who had brought me 
from a Club, left it with the Club porter, appealing to the gent 
who gave it a pore cabby, at ever so much o'clock of a rainy 
night, which he hoped he would give him another. I have 
taken that cabman at his word. He has been provided with a 
sound coin. The bad piece is on the table before me, and shall 
have a hole drilled through it, as soon as this essav is written, 
by a loyal subject who does not desire to deface the Sovereign's- 
image, but to protest against the rascal who has taken his name 
in vain. Fid, Def. indeed ! Is this what you call defending 
the faith ? You dare to forge your Sovereign's name, and pass 
your scoundrel pewter as his silver ? I wonder who you are, 
wretch and most consummate trickster ? This forgery is so 
complete that even now I am deceived by it — I can^t see the 
difference between the base and sterling metal. Perhaps this 
piece is a little lighter ; — I don't know. A little softer : — is it ? 
I have not bitten it, not being a connoisseur in the tasting of 
pewter or silver. I take the word of three honest men, though 
it goes against me : and though I have given two-and-sixpence 
worth of honest consideration for the counter, I shall not at- 
tempt to implicate anybody else in my misfortune, or transfer 
my ill-luck to a deluded neighbor. 

I say the imitation is so curiously successful, the stamping, 
milling of the edges, lettering, and so forth, are so neat, that 
even now, when my eyes are open, I cannot see the cheat. 
How did those experts, the cabman, and pikeman, and trades- 
man, come to find it out ? How do they happen to be more 
familiar with pewter and silver than I am ? You see, I put out 
of the question another point which I might argue without fear 
of defeat, namely, the cabman's statement that I gave him this 
bad piece of money. Suppose every cabman who took me a 
shilling fare were to drive away and return presently with a bad 
coin and an assertion that I had given it to him ! This would 
be absurd and mischievous ; an encouragement of vice amongst 



250 



ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 



men who already are subject to temptations. Being homo^ I 
think if I were a cabman myself, I might sometimes stretch 
a furlong or two in my calculation of distance. But don't 
come twice^ my m.an, and tell me I have given you a bad 
half-crown. No, no ! I have paid once like a gentleman, and 
► once is enough. For instance, during the Exhibition time I 
was stopped by an old country-woman in black, with a huge 
umbrella, who, bursting into tears, said to me, " Master, be 
this the w^ay to Harlow, in Essex ? This the way to Harlow 1 
This is the way to Exeter, my good lady, and you wdll arrive 
there if you walk about 170 miles in your present direction,'' 
I answered courteously, replying to the old creature. Then she 
fell a-sobbing as though her old heart would break. She had a 
daughter a-dying at Harlow. She had walked already " vifty- 
dree mile that day." Tears stopped the rest of her discourse, 
so artless, genuine, and abundant that — I own the truth — I 
gave her, in I believe genuine silver, a piece of the exact size 
of that coin which forms the subject of this essay. Well. 
About a month since, near to the very spot where I had met 
my old woman, I was accosted by a person in black, a person 
in a large draggled cap, a person with a huge umbrella, who was 
beginning, " I say. Master, can you tell me if this be the way 
to Har— ; — " but here she stopped. Her eyes goggled wildl}^ 
She started from me; as Macbeth turned from Macduff. She 
would not engage with me. It was my old friend of Harlow, 
in Essex. I dare say she has informed many, other people of 
her daughter's illness, and her anxiety to be put upon the right 
way to Harlow. Not long since a very gentlemanlike man, 
Major Delamere let us call him (I like the title of Major very 
much), requested Xo see me, nam^ed a dead gentleman who 
he said had been our mutual friend, and on the strength of this 
mutual acquaintance, begged me to cash his check for five 
pounds ! 

It is these things, my dear sir, which serve to make a man 
cynical. I do conscientiously believe that had I cashed the 
Major's check there would have been a difficulty about 
payment on the part of the respected bankers on whom he 
drew. On your honor and conscience, do you think that old 
widow w^ho was walking from Tunbridge Wells to Harlow had 
a daughter ill, and was an honest woman at all t The daughter 
couldn't always, you see, be being ill, and her mother on her way 
to her dear child through Hyde Park. In the same way some 
habitual sneerers may be inclined to hint that the cabman's story 
was an invention — or at any rate, choose to ride off (so to speak) 



ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH, 



257 



on the doubt. No. My opinion, I own, is unfavorable as 
regards the widow from Tunbridge Wells, and Major Dela- 
mere ; but, believing the cabman was honest, I am glad to 
think he was not injured by the reader's most humble ser\'ant. 

What a queer, exciting life this rogue's march must be : this 
attempt of the bad half-crowns to get into circulation ! Had 
my distinguished friend the Major knocked at many doors that 
morning, before operating on mine ? The sport most be some- 
thing akin to the pleasure of tiger or elephant hunting. What 
ingenuity the sportsman must have in tracing his prey — what 
daring and caution in coming upon him ! What coolness in 
facing the angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you 
draw a check a bout portant will be angry). What a delicious 
thrill of triumph, if you can bring him down ! If I have money 
at the banker's and draw for a portion of it over the counter, 
that is mere prose — any dolt can do that. But, having no 
balance, say I drive up in a cab, present a check at Coutts's, 
and, receiving the amount, drive off 1 What a glorious morn- 
ing's sport that has been ! How superior in excitement to the 
common transactions of every-day life i =* ^ ^ =* I must tell a 
story ; it is against myself, I lyiow, but it will out, and per- 
haps my mind will be the easier. 

More than twenty years ago, in an island remarkable for 
its verdure, I met four or five times one of the most agreeable 
companions with v/hom I have passed a night. I heard that 
evil times had come upon this gentleman ; and, overtaking him 
in a road near my own house one evening, I asked him to come 
home to dinner. In two days, he was at my door again. At 
breakfast-time was this second appearance. He was in a cab 
(of course he was in a cab, they always are, these unfortunate, 
these courageous men). To deny myself was absurd. My 
friend could see me over the parlor blinds, surrounded by my 
family, and cheerfully partaking of the morning meal. Might 
he have a word with me t and can you imagine its purport t 
By the most provoking delay, his uncle the admiral not being 
able to come to town till Friday — would I cash him a check ? 
I need not say it w^ould be paid on Saturday without fail. I 
tell you that man went away with money in his pocket, and I 
regret to add that his gallant relative has not coijie to town yet } 

Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, here, 
perhaps, I fall into a five minutes' reverie; and think of one, 
two, three, half a dozen cases in which I have been content to 
accept that sham promissory coin in return for sterling money 
advanced. Not a reader, whatever his age, but could tell a 

17 



258 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

like story. I vow and believe there are men of fifty, who will 
dine well to-day who have not paid their school debts yet, and 
who have not taken up their long-protested promises to pay. 
Tom, Dick, Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather 
relish that wince with which you will read these meek lines and 
say, " He means me." Poor Jack in Hades ! Do you remem- 
ber a certain pecuniary transaction, and a little sum of money 
you borrowed '^ until the meeting of Parliament ? " Parliament 
met often in your lifetime : Parliament has met since : but I 
think I should scarce be more surprised if your ghost glided 
into the room now, and laid down the amount of our little 
account, than I should have been if you had paid me in your 
lifetime with the actual acceptances of the Bank of England. 
You asked to borrow, but you never intended to pay. I would 
as soon have believed that a promissory note of Sir John Fal- 
staff (accepted by Messrs. Bardolph and Nym, and payable in 
Aldgate,) would be as sure to find payment, as that note of the 
departed — nay, lamented Jack Thriftless. 

He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different person 
from the individual here described. Many — most, I hope — 
took Jack's promise for what it was worth — and quite well 
knew that when he said, " Lend me," he meant " Give me " 
twenty pounds. " Give me change for this half-crown," said 
Jack ; '^ I know it's a pewter piece ; " and you gave him the 
change in honest silver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely. 

What a queer conciousness that must be which accompanies 
such a man in his sleeping, in his waking, in his walk through 
life, by his fireside with his children round him ! " For what 
we are going to receive," &c. — he says grace before his dinner. 
" My dears ! Shall I help you to some mutton ? I robbed the 
butcher of the meat. I don't intend to pay him. Johnson my 
boy, a glass of champagne ? Very good, isn't it ? Not too 
sweet. Forty six. I get it from so-and-so, wdiom I intend to 
cheat." As eagles go forth and bring home to their eaglets 
the lamb or their pavid kid, I sa}^ they are men who live and 
victual their nests by plunder. We all know highway robbers 
in w^hite neckcloths, domestic bandits, marauders, passers of 
bad coin. What was yonder check which Major Delamere 
proposed I should cash but a piece of bad money ? What was 
Jack Thriftless's promise to pay ? Having got his booty, I 
fancy Jack or the Major returning home, and wife and children 
gathering about him. Poor wife and children ! They respect 
papa very likely. They don't know he is false coin. Maybe 
the ^ife has a dreadful inkling of the truth, and, sickening, tries 



OiV A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. 



259 



. to hide it from the daughters and sons. Maybe she is an ac- 
complice : herself a brazen forgery. If Turpin and Jack Shep- 
pard were married, very likely Mesdames Sheppard and Turpin 
did not know, at first, what their husbands' real profession 
was, and fancied, when the men left home in the morning, they 
only went away to follow some regular and honorable business. 
Then a suspicion of the truth may have come : then a dread- 
ful revelation ; and presently we have the guilty pair robbing 
together, or passing forged money each on his own account. 
You know Doctor Dodd ? I wonder w^hether his wife knows 
that he is a forger, and scoundrel ? Has she had any of the 
plunder, think you, and were the darling children's new dresses 
bought with it ? The Doctor's sermon last Sunday was cer- 
tainly charming, and w^e all cried. Ah, my poor Dodd ! Whilst 
he is preaching most beautifully, pocket-handkerchief in hand, 
he is peering over the pulpit cushions, looking out piteously 
for ]\Iessrs. Peachum and Lockit from the police-office. By 
Doctor Dodd you understand I w^ould typify the rogue of re- 
spectable exterior, not committed to jail yet, but not undis- 
covered. We all know one or two such. This very sermon 
perhaps will be read by some, or more likely — for, depend upon 
it, your solemn hypocritic scoundrels don't care much for light 
literature — more likely, I say, this discourse will be read by 
some of their wdves, who think, ** Ah mercy ! does that horrible 
cynical wretch know how my poor husband blacked my eye, or 
abstracted mamma's silver teapot, or forced me to WTite So-and- 
so's name on that piece of stamped paper, or what not ? " My 
good creature, I am not angry wuth you. If your husband has 
broken your nose, you will vow that he had authority over your 
person, and a right to dem.olish any part of it : if he has con- 
veyed away your mamma's teapot, you will say that she gave it 
to him at your marriage, and it w^as very ugly, and w^hat not.^ 
if he takes your aunt's watch, and you love him, you will carry 
it ere long to the pawuibroker's, and perjure yourself — oh, how 
you will perjure yourself— in the witness-box ! I know this is 
a degrading view of w^oman's noble nature, her exalted mission, 
and so forth, and so forth. I know you will say this is bad 
morality. Is it ? Do you, or do you not, expect your woman- 
kind to stick by you for better or for worse t Say I have 
committed a forgery, and the officers come in search of me, is 
my wife, Mrs. Dodd, to show them into the dining-room and say, 

^ " Pray step in, gentlemen ! My husband has just come home 
from church. That bill with my Lord Chesterfield's accept- 
ance, I am bound to own., was never written by his lordship. 



26o ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

and the signature is in the doctor's handwriting?^' I say> 
would any man of sense and honor, or line feeling, praise his 
wife for telling the truth under such circumstances ? Suppose 
she had made a fine grimace, and said, *^ Most painful as my 
position is, most deeply as I feel for 'my William, yet truth 
must prevail, and I deeply lament to state that the beloved 
partner of my life did commit the flagitious act with wdiich he 
is charged, and is at this present moment located in the two- 
pair back, up the chimney, whither it is my duty to lead you." 
Why, even Dodd himself, who v/as one of the greatest humbugs 
who ever lived, w^ould not have had the face to say that he a]^> 
proved of his wdfe telling the truth in such a case. W^ould you 
have had Flora Macdonald beckon the officers, saying, " This 
way, gentlemen 1 You will find the young chevalier asleep in 
that cavern/^ Or don't you prefer *her to be spleiidiUe ?ne7idax, 
and ready at all risks to save him ? If ever I lead a rebellion, 
and my women betray me, may I be hanged but I will not for- 
give them : and if ever I steal a teapot, and my women don't 
stand up for me, pass the article under their shawls, whisk down 
the street with it, outbluster the policeman, and utter any 
amount of fibs before Mr. Beak, those beings are not what I 
take them to be, and — for a fortune — I won't give them so 
much as a bad half-crown. 

Is conscious guilt a source of unmixed pain to the bosom 
which harbors it ? Has not your criminal, on the contrary, an 
excitement, an enjoyment within quite unknown to you and me 
who never did anything wrong in our lives 1 The housebreaker 
must snatch a fearful joy as he walks unchallenged by the 
policeman with his sack full of spoons and tankards. Do not 
cracksmen, when assembled together, entertain themselves with 
stories of glorious old burglaries which they or by-gone heroes 
have committed ? But that my age is mature and my habits 
formed, I should really just like to try a little criminality. 
Fancy passing a forged bill to your banker ; calling on a friend 
and sweeping his sideboard of plate, his hall of umbrellas and 
coats ; and then going home to dress for dinner, say — and to 
meet a bishop, a judge, and a police magistrate or so, and talk 
more morally than any man at table 1 How I should chuckle 
(as my host's spoons clinked softly in my pocket) whilst I was 
uttering some noble speech about virtue, duty, charity ! I 
wonder do we meet garotters in society 1 In an average tea- 
party, now, how many returned convicts are there ? Does John 
Footman, when he asks permission to go and spend the even- 
ing with some friends, pass his time in thuggee ; waylay and 



O.V A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE EOURTH. 261 

Strangle an old gentleman, or two ; let himself into your 
house, with the house-key of course, and appear as usual^v/ith 
the shaving-water when you ring your bell in the morning ? 
The very possibility of such a suspicion invests John with a 
new and romantic interest in my mind. Behind the grave 
politeness of his countenance I try and read the lurking 
treason. Full of this pleasing subject,-! have been talking 
thief-stories with a neighbor. The neighbor tells me how 
some friends of hers used to keep a jewel-box under a bed 
in their room ; and, going into the room, they thought they 
heard a noise under die bed. They had the courage to look. 
The cook was under the bed — under the bed with the jewel- 
box. Of course she said she had come for purposes connected 
with her business ; but this was absurd. A cook under a bed 
is not there for professional purposes. A relation of mine had 
a box containing diamonds under her bed, which diamonds she 
told me were to be mine. Mine ! One day, at dinner-time, 
between the entrees and the roast, a cab drove away from my 
relative's house containing tke box wherein lay the diamonds. 
John laid the dessert, brought the coffee, waited all the evening 
— and oh, how frightened he was when he came to learn that 
his mistress's box had been conveyed out of her own room, and 
it contained diamonds — '^ Law bless us, did it now?'^ I won- 
der whether John's subsequent career has been prosperous? 
Perhaps the gentlemen from Bow Street were all in the wrong 
when they agreed in suspecting John as the author of the 
robber}'. His noble nature was hurt at the suspicion. You 
conceive he w^ould not like to remain in a family where they 
were mean enough to suspect him of stealing a jewel-box out 
of a bedroom — and the injured man and my relatives soon 
parted. But, inclining (with my usual cynicism) to think that 
he did steal the valuables, think of his life for the month or two 
whilst he still remains in the service ! He shows the officers 
over the house, agrees with them that the coup must have been 
made by persons familiar with it ; gives them every assistance ; 
pities his m.aster and mistress w^ith a manly compassion ; points 
out what a cruel misfortune it is to himself as an honest man, 
with his living to get and his family to provide for, that this 
suspicion should fall on him. Finally, he takes leave of his 
place, with a deep though natural melancholy that ever he had 
accepted it. What's a thousand pounds to gentlefolks ! A loss 
certainly, but they will live as w^ell without the diamonds as 
w-ith them. But to John his Hhhonor was worth more than 
diamonds, his Hhonor was. Whohever is to give him back his 



262 ROrjiVDABOUT PAPERS. 

character ? Who is to prevent hany one from saying, " Ho yes* 
This is the footman which was in the family where the diamonds 
was stole ? ''' &c. 

I wonder has John prospered in life subsequently ? If he 
is innocent, he does not interest me in the least. The interest 
of the case lies in John's behavior supposing him. to be guilty. 
Imagine the smiling face, the daily service, the orderly per- 
formance of duty, whilst within John is suffering pangs lest 
discovery should overtake him. Every bell of the door which 
he is obliged to open may bring a police-officer. The accom- 
plices may peach. What an exciting life John's must have been 
for a while. And now, years and years after, when pursuit has 
long ceased, and detection is impossible, does* he ever revert 
to the little transaction .? Is it possible those diamonds cost a 
thousand pounds ? What a rogue the fence must have been 
who only gave him so and so ! And I pleasingly picture to 
myself an old ex-footman and an ancient receiver of stolen 
goods meeting and talking over this matter, which dates from 
times so early that her present Majesty's fair image could only 
just have begun to be coined or forged. 

I choose to take John at the time when his little peccadillo 
is suspected, perhaps, but when there is no specific charge of 
robbery against him. He is not yet convicted : he is not even 
on his trial ; how then can we venture to say he is guilty 'i Now 
think what scores of men and women walk the world in a like 
predicament ; and what false coin passes current ! Pinchbeck 
strives to pass off his history as sound coin. He knows it is 
only base metal, washed over with a thin varnish of learning. 
Poluphloisbos puts his sermons in circulation : sounding brass, 
lackered over with white metal, and marked with the stamp 
and image of piety. What say you to Drawcansir's reputation 
as a military commander ? to Tibbs's pretensions to be a fine 
gentleman ? to Sapphira's claims as a poetess, or Rodoessa's as 
a beauty ? His bravery, his piety, high birth, genius, beauty — 
each of these deceivers would palm his falsehood on us, and 
have us accept his forgeries as sterling coin. And we talk 
here, please to observe, of weaknesses rather than crimes. 
Some of us have more serious things to hide than a yellow 
cheek behind a raddle of rouge, or a white poll under a wig of 
jetty curls. You know, neighbor, there are not only false teeth 
in this world, but false tongues : and some make up a bust and 
an appearance of strength with padding, cotton, and what not ? 
while another kind of artist tries to take you in by wearing 
under his waistcoat, and perpetually thumping, an immense 



*STRAXGE TO SAY, O.Y CLUB PAPERS 263 

sham heart. Dear sir, may yours and mine be found, at the 
right time, of the proper size and in the right place. 

And what has this to do with half-crowns, good or bad ? Ah, 
friend ! may our coin, battered, and clipped, and defaced though 
it be, be proved to be Sterling Silver on the day of the Great 
Assay ! 



''STRANGE TO SAV, ON CLUB PAPERr 

Before the Duke of York's column, and between the 
" Athenaeum " and '' United Service " Clubs, I have seen more 
than once, on the esplanade, a preacher holding forth to a little 
congregation of badauds and street-boys, wdiom he entertains 
with a discourse on the crimes of a rapacious aristocracy, or 
warns of the imminent peril of their own souls. Sometimes 
this orator is made to " move on " by brutal policemen. Some- 
times, on a Sunday, he points to a w^hite head or two visible in 
the windows of the Clubs to the right and left of him, and 
volunteers a statement that those quiet and elderly Sabbath- 
breakers will very soon be called from this world to another, 
where their lot will by no means be so comfortable as that 
which the reprobates enjoy here, in their arm-chairs by their 
snug fires. 

At the end of last month, had I been a Pall Mall preacher, 
I would have liked to send a whip round to all the Clubs in St, 
James's, and convoke the few members remaining in London 
to hear a discourse sab Dio on a text from the Observer news- 
paper. I would have taken post under the statue of Fame, say, 
where she stands distributing wreaths to the three Crimean 
Guardsmen. (The crossing-sweeper does not obstruct the path, 
and I suppose is away at his villa on Sundays.) And, when 
the congregation was pretty quiet, I would have begun : — 

In the Observer oi the 27th September, 1863, in the fifth 
page and the fourth column, it is thus written : — 

** The codicil appended to the will of the late Lord Clyde, 
executed at Chatham, and bearing the signature of Clyde, F. 
M., is written, strange to say, on a sheet of paper beari7ig tht 
^'AthencBum Club ' inarkT 

What the codicil is, my dear brethren, it is not our business 
to inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faithful and attached 



264 - ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, 

friend of the good Field-Marshal. The gift may be a lakh of 
rupees, or it may be a house and its contents — furniture, plate, 
and wine-cellar. My friends, I know the wine-merchant, and, 
for the sake of the legatee, hope heartily that the stock is 
large. 

Am I wrong, dear brethren, in supposing that you expect a 
preacher to say a seasonable word on death here. If you don't, 
I fear you are but little familiar wdth the habits of preachers, 
and are but lax hearers of sermons. We might contrast the 
vault where the warrior's remains lie shrouded and coffined, 
with that in which his worldly provision of wine is stowed away. 
Spain and Portugal and France — all the lands which supplied 
his store — as hardy and obedient subaltern, as resolute captain, 
as colonel daring but prudent — he has visited the fields of all. 
In India and China he marches always unconquered ; or at the 
head of his dauntless Highland brigade he treads the Crimean 
snow ; or he rides from conquest to conquest in India once 
more ; succoring his countrymen in the hour of their utmost 
need ; smiting down the scared mutiny, and trampling out 
the embers of rebellion ; at the head of an heroic army, a con- 
summate chief. And now his glorious old sw^ord is sheathed, 
and his honors are won ; and he has bought him a house, and 
stored it wdth modest cheer for his friends (the good old man 
put water in his own wdne, and a glass or two sufficed him) — 
behold the end comes, and his legatee inherits these modest 
possessions by virtue of a codicil to his lordship's will, written, 
'' stra?ige to say^ 7cpo?i a sheet of paper bearing the '' Athenceicm 
Club ' ma7^ky 

It is to this part of the text, my brethren, that I propose to 
address myself particularly, and if the remarks I make are 
offensive to any of you, you know the doors of our meeting- 
house are open, and you can walk out wdien you will. Around 
us are magnificent halls and palaces frequented by such a 
multitude of men as not even the Roman Forum assembled to- 
gether. Yonder are the Martium and the Palladium. Next 
to the Palladium is the elegant Viatorium, which Barry grace- 
fully stole from Rome. By its side is the massive Reforma- 
torium : and the — -the Ultratorium rears its granite columns 
beyond. Extending dowm the street palace after palace rises 
magnificent, and under their lofty roofs ^warriors and lawyers, 
merchants and nobles, scholars and seamen, the wealthy, the 
poor, the busy, the idle assemble. Into the halls built down 
this little street and its neighborhood the principal men of all 
London come to hear or impart the news ; and the affairs of 



''STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER:* 265 

the state or of private individuals, the quarrels of empires or 
of authors, the movements of the court, or the splendid vaga- 
ries of fashion, the intrigues of statesmen or of persons of an- 
other sex yet more wily, the last news of the battles in the 
great occidental continents, nay, the latest betting for the horse- 
races, or the advent of a dancer at the theatre — all that men do 
is discussed in these Pall Mall agorae, where we of London 
> daily assemble. 

Now among so many talkers, consider how^ many false 
reports must fly about : in such multitudes imagine hovr many 
disappointed men there must be ; how many chatterboxes ; 
how many feeble and credulous (whereof I mark some speci- 
mens in my congregation) ; how many mean, rancorous, prone 
to believe ill of their betters, eager to find fault ; and then, my 
brethren, fancy how tlie words of my text must have been read 
and received in Pali Mall ! (I perceive several of tlie congre- 
gation looking most uncomfortable. One old boy with a dyed 
mustache turns purple in the face, and struts back to the Mar- 
tium: another, with a shrug of the shoulder and a nmrmur of 
" Rubbish,'' slink's away in the direction of the Togatorium, 
and the preacher continues.) The will of Field-Marshal Lord 
Clyde — signed at Chathavi, mind, where his lordship died — is 
written, stra?ige to say, on a sheet, of paper bearing the ^'Athen- 
aeum Club '' mark ! 

The inference is obvious. A man cannot get Athenaeum 
paper except at the '' Athenaeum.'' Such paper is not sold at 
Chatham where the last codicil to his lordship's \vill is dated. 
And so the painful belief is forced upon us, that a Peer, a- 
Field-Marshal, wealth}^ respected, illustrious, could pocket 
paper at his Club, and carry it away Vv'ith him to the countr}'. 
One fancies the hall-porter conscious of the old lord's iniquity, 
and holding down his head as the Marshal passes the door. 
What is that roll which his lordship carries ? Is it his Marshal's 
baton gloriously won ? No ; it is a roll of foolscap conveyed 
from the Club. What has he on his breast, under his great- 
coat ? Is it his Star of India? No ; it is a bundle of envelopes, 
bearing the head of Minerva, some sealing-wax, and a half- 
score of pens. 

Let us imagine how in the hall of one or other of these 
Clubs this strange anecdote will be discussed. 

" Notorious screw," says Sneer. '' The poor old fell^w^'s 
avarice has long been known. 

" Suppose he wishes to imitate the Duke of Marlborough/'* 
says Simper. 



266 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

'" Habit of looting contracted in India, you know ; ain't so 
easy to get over, you know,'' says Snigger. 

^^ When officers dined with him in India," remarks Solemn, 
'* it was notorious that the spoons were all of a different 
pattern." 

" Perhaps it isn't true. Suppose he wrote his paper at the 
Club ? " interposes Jones. 

" It is dated at Chatham, my good man," says Brown. " A 
man if he is in London says he is in London. A man if he is 
in Rochester says he is in Rochester. This man happens to 
forget that he is using the Club paper : and he happens to be 
found out : many men ^^;/'/ happen to be found out. I've seen 
literary fellows at Clubs writing their rubbishing articles ; I 
have no doubt they take away reams of paper. They crib 
thoughts: why shouldn't they crib stationery.^ One of your 
■ literary vagabonds who is capable of stabbing a reputation, who 
is capable of telling any monstrous falsehood to support his 
party, is surely capable of stealing a ream of paper." 

"Well, well, we have all our weaknesses," sighs Robinson. 
" Seen that article, Thompson, in the Observer about Lord 
Clyde and the Club paper? You'll find it up stairs. In the 
third column of the fifth page towards the bottom of the page. 
I suppose he was so poor he couldn't afford to buy a quire of 
paper. Hadn't fourpence in "the world. Oh, no ! " 

" And they want to get up a testimonial to this man's mem- 
ory — a statue or something!" cries Jawkins. "A man who 
wallows in wealth and takes paper away from his Club ! I 
don't say he is not brave. Brutal courage most men have. 
I don't say he was not a good officer: a man with such ex- 
perience must have been a good officer, unless he was born 
fool. But to think of this man loaded with honors — though of 
a low origin — so lost to self-respect as actually to take away 
the 'Athenaeum' paper! These parvenus, sir, betray their 
origin — betray their origin. I said to my wife this very 
morning, ' Mrs. Jawkins,' I said, ' there is talk of a testi- 
monial to this man. I will not give one shilling. I have no 
idea of raising statues to fellows v/ho take away Club paper. 
No, by George, I have not. Why, they will be raising statues 
to men who take Club spoons next ! Not one penny of my 
money shall they have ! ' " 

And now, if you please, we will tell the real story which has 
furnished this scandal to a newspaper, this tattle to Club 
gossips and loungers. The Field-Marshal, wishing to make a 
further provision for a friend, informed his lawyer what he 



"" STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER. 267 

desired to do. The lawyer, a member of the "Athenaeum 
Club," there wrote the draft of such a codicil as he would ad- 
vise, and sent the paper by the post to Lord Clyde at Chatham. 
Lord Clyde, finding the paper perfectly satisfactory, signed it 
and sent it back : and hence we have the story of " the codicil 
bearing the signature of Clyde, F. ]\L, and written, strange to 
say, upon paper bearing the 'Athenaeum Club ' mark/' 

Here I have been imagining a dialogue between a half- 
dozen gossips such as congregate round a Club fireplace of an 
afternoon. I wonder how many people besides — whether any 
chance reader of this very page has read and believed this story 
about the good old lord ? Have the country papers copied the 
anecdote, and our '' own correspondents " made their remarks 
on it? If, my-good sir, or madam, you have read it and cred- 
ited it, don't you own to a little feeling of shame and sorrow, 
now that the trumpery little mystery is cleared ? To " the new 
inhabitant of light," passed away and out of reach of our cen- 
sure, misrepresentation, scandal, dulness, malice, a silly false- 
hood matters nothing. Censure and praise are alike to him — 

" The music warbling to the deafened ear, 
The incense wasted on the funeral bier," 

the pompous eulog}^ pronounced over the gravestone, or the lie 
that slander spits oh it. Faithfully though this brave old chief 
did his duty, honest and upright though his life was, glorious 
his renown — you see he could write at Chatham on London 
paper ; you see men can be found to point out how " strange " 
his behavior was. 

And about ourselves ? My good people, do you by chance 
know any man or woman who has formed unjust conclusions 
regarding his neighbor? Have you ever found yourself willing, 
nay, eager to believe evil of some man whom you hate ? Whom 
you hate because he is successful, and you are not : because he 
is rich, and you are poor : because he dines with great men 
who don't invite you :' because he wears a silk gown, and yours 
is still stuff : because he has been called in to perform the opera- 
tion though you lived close by : because his. pictures have been 
bought, and yours returned home unsold : because he fills his 
church, and you are preaching to empty pews ? If your rival 
prospers, have you ever felt a twinge of anger ? If his wife's 
carriage passes you and Mrs, Tomkins, who are in a cab. don't 
you feel that those people are giving themselves absurd airs of 
importance ? If he lives with great people, are you not sure he 
is a sneak ? And if you ever felt envy towards another, and if 



268 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

your heart has ever been black towards your- brother, if you 
have been peevish at his success, pleased to hear his merit de- 
preciated, and eager to believe all that is said in his disfavor — ■ 
my good sir, as you yourself contritely own that you are unjust, 
jealous, uncharitable, so you may be sure, some men are un- 
charitable, jealous, and unjust regarding j^^/. 

The proofs and manuscript of this little sermon have just 
come from the printer's, and as I look at the writing, I perceive, 
not without a smile, that one or two of the pages bear, '' strange 
to say," the mark of a Club of which I have the honor to be a 
member. Those lines quoted in a foregoing page are from 
some noble verses written by one of Mr. Addison's men, Mr. 
Tickell, on the death of Cadogan, who was amongst the most 
prominent *' of Marlborough's captains and Eugenio's friends." 
If you are acquainted Vv'ith the history of those times, you have 
read hov/ Cadogan had his feuds and hatreds too, as Tickell's 
patron had his, as Cadogan's great chief had his. *' The Duke 
of Marlborough's character has been so variously drawn " 
(writes a famous contemporary of the duke's), ''' that it is hard 
to pronounce on either side without the suspicion of flattery or 
detraction. I shall say nothing of his military accomplish- 
ments, which the opposite reports of his friends and enemies 
among the soldiers have rendered problematical. Those ma- 
ligners who deny him personal valor, seem not to consider that 
this accusation is charged at a venture, since the person of a 
general is too seldom exposed, and that fear which is said some- 
times to have disconcerted him before action might probably 
be more for his army than himself." If Swift could hint a doubt 
of Marlborough's courage, what Vvonder that a nameless scribe 
of our dav should question the honor of Clyde ? 



THE LAST SKETCH. 



Not many days since I went to visit a house where in 
former years I had received many a friendly welcome. We 
went into the owner's — an artist's — studio. Prints, pictures and 
sketches hung on the walls as I had last seen and remembered 
them. The implements of the painter's art were there. The 
light which had shown upon so many, many hours of patient 



J 



THE LAST SKETCH, 269 

and cheerful toil, poured through the northern window upon 
print and bust, lay figure and sketch, and upon the easel before 
which the good, the gentle, the beloved Leslie labored. In this 
room the busy brain had devised, and the skilful hand executed, 
I know not how many of the noble works which have delighted 
the world with their beauty and charming humor. Here the 
poet called up into pictorial presence, and informed with life, 
grace, beauty, infinite friendly mirth and wondrous naturalness 
of expression, the people of whom his dear books told him the 
stories, — his Shakspeare, his Cervantes, his Moliere, his Le 
Sage. There was his last work on the easel — a beautiful fresh 
smiling shape of Titania, such as his sweet guileless fancy im- 
agined the Midsum7iier Nighfs queen to be. Gracious, and 
pure, and bright, the sweet smiling im.age glimmers on the can- 
vas. Fairy elves, no doubt, were to have been grouped around 
their mistress in laughing clusters. Honest Bottom's grotesque 
head and form are indicated as reposing by the side of the 
consummate beauty. The darkling forest would have grown 
around them, with the stars glittering from the midsummer sky : 
the flowers at the queen's feet, and the boughs and foliage about 
her, would have been peopled with gambolling sprites and fays. 
They w^ere dwelling in the artist's mind no doubt, and would 
have been developed by that patient, faithful, admirable genius : 
but the busy brain stopped working, the skilful hand fell lifeless, 
the loving, honest heart ceased to beat. What was she to 
have been — ^that fair Titania — when perfected by the patient 
skill of the poet, who in imagination saw the sweet innocent 
figure, and with tender courtesy and caresses, as it were, posed 
and shaped and traced the fair form ? Is there record kept 
anywhere of fancies conceived, beautiful, unborn ? Some day 
will they assume form in some yet undeveloped light ? If our 
bad unspoken thoughts are registered against us, and are writ- 
ten in the awful account, will not the good thoughts unspoken, 
the love and tenderness, the pity, beauty, charity, which pass 
through the breast, and cause the heart to throb wdtlv silent 
good, find a remembrance too ? A few weeks more, and this 
lovely offspring of the poet's conception would have been com- 
plete — to charm the world v/ith its beautiful mirth. May there 
not be some sphere unknown to us where it may have an ex- 
istence ? They say our words, once out of our lips, go travel- 
ling in omne csvnm, reverberating for ever and ever. If our 
words, why not our thoughts ? If the Has Been, why not the 
Might Have Been ? 

Some day our spirits may be permitted to walk in galleries 



270 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS. 

of fancies^ more wondrous and beautiful than any achieved 
works which at present we see, and our minds to behold and 
delight in masterpieces which poets' and artists' minds ha.ve 
fathered and conceived only. 

With a feeling much akin to that with which 'I looked upon 
the friend's — the admirable artist's — unfinished work, I can 
fancy many readers turning to the last pages which were traced 
by Charlotte Bronte's hand. Of the multitude that have read 
her books, who has not known and deplored the tragedy of her 
family, her own most sad and untimely fate ? Which of her 
readers has not become her friend ? Who that has known her 
books has not admired the artist's noble English, the burning 
love of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at 
wrong, the eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the 
passionate honor, so to speak, of the woman ? What a story is 
that of that family of poets in their solitude yonder on the 
gloomy northern moors ! At nine o'clock at night, Mrs. Gaskell 
tells, after evening prayers, when their guardian and relative 
had gone to bed, the three poetesses — the three maidens, Char- 
lotte, and Emily, and Anne — Charlotte being the *' motherly 
friend and guardian to the other two" — ^* began, like restless 
wild animals, to pace uj^ and dow^n their parlor, ' making out ' 
their wonderful stories, talking over plans and projects, and 
thoughts of what was to be their future life." 

One evening, at the close of 1854, as Charlotte Nicholls sat 
with her husband by the fire, listening to the howling of the 
wind about the house, she suddenly said to her husband, *' If 
you had not been with me, I must have been writing now." 
She ran up stairs, and brought down, and read aloud, the be- 
ginning of a new tale. When she had finished, her husband 
remarked, " The critics will accuse you of repetition." She 
replied, *' Oh ! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three 
times before I can please myself." But it was not to be. The 
trembling little hand was to write no more. The heart newly 
awakened to love and happiness, and throbbing with maternal 
hope, w^as soon to cease to beat ; that intrepid outspeaker and 
champion of truth, that eager, impetuous redresser of wrong, 
was to be called out of the w^orld's fight and struggle, to lay 
down the shining arms, and to be removed to a sphere where 
even a noble indignation cor niterius iieqiiit lacerare, and where 
truth complete, and right triumphant, no longer need to wage 
war. 

I can only say of this lady, 7'idi tautuvi. I saw her first just 
as I rose out of an illness from which 1 had never thouo;ht to 



THE LAST SKE TCH, 2 7 1 

recover. I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, 
the great honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me 
to characterize the woman. Twice I recollect she took me to 
task for what she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about 
Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She 
jumped too rapidly to conclusions. (I have smiled at one or 
two passages in the *' Biography," in which my own disposi- 
tion or behavior forms the subject of talk.) She formed con- 
clusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of 
character upon them. New to the London world, she entered 
it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her own ; arid 
judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance 
or affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was 
angry with her favorites if their conduct or conversation fell 
below her ideal. Often she seemed to me to be judging the 
London folk prematurely : but perhaps the city is rather angry 
at being judged. I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc march- 
ing in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our easy morals. 
She gave me the impression of being a very pure, and lofty, and 
high-minded person. i\. great and holy reverence of right and 
truth seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief inter- 
view, she appeared to me. As one thinks of that life so noble, 
so lonely — of that passion for truth — of those nights and nights 
of eager study, swarming fancies, invention, depression, elation, 
prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete, though most 
touching ana admirable history of the heart thai throbbed in 
this one little frame — of this one amongst the myriads of souls 
that have lived and died on this great earth — this great earth t 
— this little speck in the infinite universe of God, — with what 
wonder do we think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, 
when that which is now^ but darkly seen shall be clear ! As I 
read this little fragmentary sketch, I think of the rest. Is it .'* 
And where is it ? Will not the leaf be turned some day, and 
the story be told ? Shall the deviser of the tale somewhere 
perfect the history of little Emma's griefs and troubles ? Shall 
TiTANiA come forth complete with her sportive court, with the 
flower«i ^t her feet, the forest around her, and all the stars, of 
summer glittering overhead ? 

How well I remember the delight, and wonder, and pleasure 
with which I read ** Jane Eyre," sent to me by an author whose 
name and sex were then alike unknown to me ; the strange 
fascinations of the book ; and how with my own work pressing 
upon me, I could not, having taken the volumes up, lay them 
down until they were read through ! Hundreds of those who, 



2^2 ROUNDABOUT PAPERS^ 

like myself, recognized and admired that master-work of a great 
genius, will look with a mournful interest and regard and curi- 
osity upon the last fragmentary sketch from the noble hand 
which wrote '' Jane Eyre.'* 



xaE END OF 



EHOGH MOBGAirS SOHB' 




SAPOLIO 



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